INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES 

1940-1965 

DEFENSE STUDIES SERIES 

INTEGRATION 

OF THE ARMED FORCES 

1940-1965 

by 

Morris J. MacGregor, Jr. 

CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY 

. UNITED STATES ARMY 

WASHINGTON, D. C., 2001 
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data 

MacGregor, Morris J 

Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 . 

(Defense studies series) 

Includes bibliographical references and index. 

Supt. of Docs. no.: D 114.2:In 8 /940-65 

1. Afro-American soldiers. 2. United StatesRace relations. I. Title. II. Series. 

UB418.A47M33. 335.3'3 80-607077 

First Printed 1981-CMH Pub 50- 1- 1 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office 

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2250 

Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001 
Defense Historical Studies Committee 

(as of 6 Aprill979) 

Alfred Goldberg 

Office of the Secretary of Defense 

Brig. Gen. James L. Collins, Jr. 

Chief of Military History 

Maurice Matloff 

Center of Military History 

Rear Adm. John D. H. Kane, Jr. 

Director of Naval History 

Dean C. Allard 

Naval.Historical Center 

Robert J. Watson 

Historical Division, Joint Chiefs of Staff 

Maj . Gen. John W. Huston 

Chief of Air Force History 

Stanley L. Falk 

Office of Air Force History 

Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Edwin H. Simmons 

Director of Marine Corps History and 

Museums 

Henry I. Shaw, Jr. 

Marine Corps Historical tenter 
Department of the Army 

Historical Advisory Committee 

(as of 6 April 1979) 

Otis A. Singletary 

University of Kentucky 

Brig. Gen. Robert Arter 

U.S. Army Command and 

General Staff College 

Harry L. Coles 

Ohio State University 

Robert H. Ferrell 

Indiana University 

Cyrus H. Fraker 

The Adjutant General Center 

William H. Goetzmann 

University of Texas 

Col. Thomas E. Gness 

U.S. Military Academy 

Maj. Gen. Robert C. Hixon 

U.S. Army Training and Doctrine 

Command 

Sara D. Jackson 

National Historical Publications 

and Records Commission I 

Maj. Gen. Enrique Mendez, Jr. 

Deputy Surgeon General, USA 

James O'Neill 

Deputy Archivist of the United States 

Benjamin Quarles 

Morgan State College 

Brig. Gen. Alfred L. Sanderson 

Army War College 

Russell F. Weigley 

Temple University 
Foreword 

The integration of the armed forces was a momentous event in our military 

and national history; it represented a milestone in the development of the 

armed forces and the fulfillment of the democratic ideal. The existence of integrated rather than segregated armed forces is an important factor in our 

military establishment today. The experiences in World War II and the postwar 

pressures generated by the civil rights movement compelled all the services- Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps-to reexamine their traditional practices of segregation. While there were differences in the ways that the services 

moved toward integration, all were subject to the same demands, fears, and prejudices and had the same need to use their resources in a more rational and 

economical way. All of them reached the same conclusion: tradidonal attitudes 

toward minorities must give way t:o democratic concepts of civil rights. 

If the integration of the armed services now seems to have been inevitable in 

a democratic society, it nevertheless faced opposition that had to be overcome 

and problems that had to be solved through the combined efforts of political 

and civil rights leaders and civil and military officials. In many ways the military 

services were at the cutting edge in the struggle for racial equality. This volume 

sets forth the successive measures they and the Office of the Secretary of Defense 

took to meet the challenges of a new era in a critically important area of human 

relationships, during a period of transition that saw the advance of blacks in the 

social and economic order as well as in the military. It is fitting that this story 

should be told in the first volume of a new Defense Studies Series. 

The Defense Historical Studies Program was authorized by the then Deputy 

Secretary of Defense, Cyrus Vance, in April 1965. It is conducted under the 

auspices of the· Defense Historical Studies Group, an ad hoc body chaired by the 

Historian of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and consisting of the senior 

officials in the historical offices of the services and of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

Volumes produced under its sponsorship will be interservice histories, covering 

matters of mutual interest to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff. The preparation of each volume is entrusted to one of the 

service historical sections, in this case the Army's Center of Military History. 

Although the book was written by an Army historian, he was generously given 

access to the pertinent records of the other services and the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, and this initial volume in the Defense Studies Series covers 

the experiences of all components of the Department of Defense in achieving 

integration. 

Washington, D.C. 

14 March 1980 

Vll 

}AMES L. COLLINS, JR. 

Bri~adier General, USA 

Chtef of Military History 
The Author 

Morris J. MacGregor, Jr., received the A.B. and M.A. degrees in history 

from the Catholic University of America. He continued his graduate studies at 

the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Paris on a Fulbright grant. 

Before joining the staff of the U.S. Army Center of Military History in 1968 he 

served for ten years in the Historical Division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He has 

written several studies for military publications including "Armed Forces Integration-Forced or Free?" in The Military and Society: Proceedings of the 

Ft/th Military Symposium of the U.S. Air Force Academy. He is the coeditor 

with Bernard C. Nalty of the thirteen-volume Blacks in the United States 

Armed Forces: Basic Documents and with Ronald Spector of Vozces of History: 

Interpretations in Amertcan Military History. He is currently working on a sequel to Integration of the Armed Forces which will also appear in the Defense 

Studies Series. 

viii 
Preface 

This book describes the fall of the legal, administrative, and social barriers to 

the black American's full participation in the military service of his country. It 

follows the changing status of the black serviceman from the eve of World War 

II, when he was excluded from many military activities and rigidly segregated in 

the rest, to that period a quarter of a century later when the Department of 

Defense extended its protection of his rights and privileges even to the civilian 

community. To round out the story of open housing for members of the 

military, I briefly overstep the closing date given in the title. 

The work is essentially an administrative history that attempts to measure 

the influence of several forces, most notably the civil rights movement, the 

tradition of segregated service, and the changing concept of military efficiency, 

on the development of racial policies in the armed forces. It is not a history of all 

minorities in the services. Nor is it an account of how the black American 

responded to discrimination. A study of racial attitudes, both black and white, 

in the military services would be a valuable addition to human knowledge, but 

practically impossible of accomplishment in the absence of sufficient 

autobiographical accounts, oral history interviews, and detailed sociological 

measurements. How did the serviceman view his condition, how did he convey 

his desire for redress, and what was his reauion to social change? Even now the 

answers to these questions are blurred by time and distorted by emotions 

engendered by the civil rights revolution. Few citizens, black or white, who 

witnessed it can claim immunity to the influence of that paramount social 

phenomenon of our times. 

At times I do generalize on the attitudes of both black and white servicemen 

and the black and white communities at large as well. But I have permitted 

myself to do so only when these attitudes were clearly pertinent to changes in 

the services' racial policies and only when the written record supported, or at 

least did not contradict, the memory of those participants who had been interviewed. In any case this study is largely history written from the top down and is 

based primarily on the written records left by the administrations of five 

presidents and by civil rights leaders, service officials, and the press. 

Many of the attitudes and expressions voiced by the participants in the story 

are now out of fashion. The reader must be constantly on guard against viewing 

the beliefs and statements of many civilian and military officials out of context 

of the times in which they were expressed. Neither bigotry nor stupidity was the 

monopoly of some of the people quoted; their statements are important for 

what they tell us about certain attitudes of our society rather than for what they 

1X 
reveal about any individual. If the methods or attitudes of some of the black 

spokesmen appear excessively tame to those who have lived through the 1960's, 

they too should be gauged in the context of the times. If their statements and 

actions shunned what now seems the more desirable, albeit radical, course, it 

should be given them that the style they adopted appeared in those days to be 

the most promising for racial progress. 

The words black and Negro have been used interchangeably in the book, 

with Negro generally as a noun and black as an adjective. Aware of differing 

preferences in the black community for usage of these words, the author was interested in comments from early readers of the manuscript. Some of the participants in the story strongly objected to one word or the other. "Do me one 

favor in return for my help, "Lt. Comdr. Dennis D. Nelson said, "never call me 

a black." Rear Adm. Gerald E. Thomas, on the other hand, suggested that the 

use of the term Negro might repel readers with much to learn about their recent 

past. Still others thought that the historian should respect the usage of the 

various periods covered in the story, a solution that would have left the volume 

with the term colored for mos.t of the earlier chapters and Negro for much of the 

rest. With rare exception, the term black does not appear in twentieth century 

military records before the late 1960's. Fashions in words change, and it is only 

for the time being perhaps that black and Negro symbolize different attitudes. 

The author has used the words as synonyms and trusts that the reader will accept 

them as such. Professor John Hope Franklin, Mrs. Sara Jackson of the National 

Archives, and the historians and officials that constituted the review panel went 

along with this approach. 

The second question of usage concerns the words integration and 

desegregation. In recent years many historians have come to distinguish between 

these like-sounding words. Desegregation they see as a direct action against 

segregation; that is, it signifies the act of removing legal barriers to the equal 

treatment of black citizens as guaranteed by the Constitution. The movement 

toward desegregation, breaking down the nation's Jim Crow system, became increasingly popular in the decade after World War II. Integration, on the other 

hand, Professor Oscar Handlin maintains, implies several things not yet 

necessarily accepted in all areas of American society. In one sense it refers to the 

''leveling of all barriers to association other than those based on ability, taste, 

and personal preference''; 1 in other words, providing equal opportunity. But in 

another sense integration calls for the random distribution of a minority 

throughout society. Here, according to Handlin, the emphasis is on racial 

balance in areas of occupation, education, residency, and the like. 

From the beginning the military establishment rightly understood that the 

breakup of the all-black unit would in a closed society necessarily mean more 

than mere desegregation. It constantly used the terms integration and equal 

treatment and opportunity to describe its racial goals. Rarely, if ever, does one 

find the word desegregation in military files that include much correspondence 

1

0scar Handlin, "The Goals of Integration, " DaedaluJ 95 (Winter 1966): 270. 

X 
from the various civil rights organizations. That the military made the right 

choice, this study seems to demonstrate, for the racial goals of the Defense 

Department, as they slowly took form over a quarter of a century, fulfilled both 

of Profe~sor Handlin's definitions of integration. 

The mid-1960's saw the end of a long and important era in the racial history 

of the armed forces. Although the services continued to encounter racial problems, these problems differed radically in several essentials from those of the integration period considered in this volume. Yet there is a continuity to the story 

of race relations. and one can hope that the story of how an earlier generation 

struggled so that black men and women might serve their country in freedom 

inspires those in the services who continue to fight discrimination. 

This study benefited greatly from the assistance of a large number of persons 

during its long years of preparation. Stetson Conn, chief historian of the Army, 

proposed the book as an interservice project. His successor, Maurice Matloff, 

forced to deal with the complexities of an interservice project, successfully 

guided the manuscript through to publication. The work was carried out under 

the general supervision of Robert R. Smith, chief of the General History Branch. 

He and Robert W. Coakley, deputy chief historian of the Army, were the 

primary reviewers of the manuscript, and its final form owes much to their advice and attention. The author also profited greatly from the advice of the official review panel, which, under the chairmanship of Alfred Goldberg, 

historian, Office of the Secretary of Defense, included Martin Blumenson; 

General J. Lawton Collins (USA Ret.); Lt. Gen. Benjamin 0. Davis, Jr. (USAF 

Ret.); Roy K. Davenport, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army; 

Stanley L. Falk, chief historian of the Air Force; Vice Adm. E. B. Hooper, Chief 

of Naval History; Professor Benjamin Quarles; Paul J. Scheips, historian, Center 

of Military History; Henry I. Shaw, chief historian of the U.S. Marine Corps; 

Loretto C. Stevens, senior editor of the Center of Military History; Robert J. 

Watson, chief historian of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Adam Yarmolinsky, 

former assistant to the Secretary of Defense. 

Many of the participants in this story generously shared their knowledge 

with me and kindly reviewed my effortS. My footnotes acknowledge my debt to 

them. Nevertheless, two are singled out here for special mention. James C. 

Evans, former counselor to the Secretary of Defense for raciai affairs, has been an 

endless source of information on race relations in the military. If I sometimes 

disagreed with his interpretations and assessments, I never doubted his total 

dedication to the cause of the black serviceman. I owe a similar debt to Lt. 

Comdr. Dennis D. Nelson (USN Ret.) for sharing his intimate understanding 

of race relations in the Navy. A resourceful man with a sure social touch, he 

must have been one hell of a sailor. 

I want to note the special contribution of several historians. Martin Blumenson was first assigned to this project, and before leaving the Center of Military 

History he assembled research material that proved most helpful. My former colleague John Bernard Corr prepared a study on the National Guard upon which 

my account of the guard is based. In addition, he patiently reviewed many pages 

Xl 
of the draft manuscript. His keen insights and sensitive understanding were invaluable to me. Professors Jack D. Foner and Marie Carolyn Klinkhammer provided parti ularly helpful suggestions in conjunction with their reviews of the 

manuscript. Samuel B. Warner, who before his untimely death was a historian 

in the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as a colleague of Lee Nichols on some of that 

reporter's civil rights investigations, also contributed generously of his talents 

and lent his support in the early days of my work. Finally, I am grateful for the 

advice of my colleague Ronald H. Spector at several key points in the preparation of this history. 

I have received much help from archivists and librarians, especially the 

resourceful William H. Cunliffe and Lois Aldridge (now retired) of the National 

Archives and Dean C. Allard of the Naval Historical Center. Although the fruits 

of their scholarship appear often in my footnotes, three fellow researchers in the 

field deserve special mention: Maj. Alan M. Osur and Lt. Col. Alan L. Gropman 

of the U.S . Air Force and Ralph W. Donnelly, former member of the U.S. 

Marine Corps Historical Center. I have benefited from our exchange of ideas 

and have had the advantage of their reviews of the manuscript. 

I am especially grateful for the generous assistance of my editors, Loretto C. 

Stevens and Barbara H. Gilbert. They have been both friends and teachers. In 

the same vein, I wish to thank John Elsberg for his editorial counsel. I also appreciate the help given by William G. Bell in the selection of the illustrations, 

including the loan of two rare items from his personal collection, and ArthurS. 

Hardyman for preparing the pictures for publication. I would like to thank.Mary 

Lee Treadway and Wyvetra B. Yeldell for preparing the manuscript for panel 

review and Terrence J. Gough for his helpful pre-publication review. 

Finally, while no friend or relative was spared in the long years I worked on 

this book, three colleagues especially bore with me through days of doubts and 

frustrations and shared my small triumphs: Alfred M. Beck, Ernest F. Fisher, Jr., 

and Paul J. Scheips. I also want particularly to thank Col. James W. Dunn. I 

only hope that some of their good sense and sunny optimism show through 

these pages. 

Washington, D.C. 

14 March 1980 

Xll 

MORRIS J. MACGREGOR, }R. 
Contents 

Ch11p1er 

1. INTRODUCTION 

The Armed Forces Before 1940 . ........ . . .......... ............... . 

Civil Rights and the Law in 1940 ............................ ...... . 

To Segregate Is To Discriminate .............. . .................... . 

2. WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY ... . ....... ....... . ... .............. . 

A War Policy: Reaf/t'rming Segregation . ................. . .......... . 

Segregation and Efjt'ciency .. ...................... ... ............ . 

The Need for Change .... . ..... . ... . ....... . . ... .. . .... ......... . 

Internal Reform: Amending Racial Practices ......................... . 

Two Exceptions . ........................................... .... . 

3. WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY ..... . .... ...... .................... . 

Development of a Wartime Policy ............... ... ............. .. . 

A Segregated Navy ............................................. . 

Progressive Experiments ............ ........... ............... . . . . 

Fo"estal Takes the Helm . .. ........... .... . .... . . ................ . 

4. WORLD WAR II: THE MARINE CORPS AND THE COAST GUARD .. . . 

The First Black Marines . ... ... . . ..... ... . ........ ........... ... .. . 

New Roles for Black Coast Guardsmen . ........ . ..... ... ........... . . 

5. A POSTWAR SEARCH . ... .................... . . . .. . . . ........ . . 

Black Demands ... ............................................ . . 

The Army's Grand Review .............. . ........................ . 

The Navy's Informal Inspection ....... . ...... . ............ ... . .... . 

6. NEW DIRECTIONS ................ ........... ................ . . 

The Gillem Board Report ........................................ . 

Integration of the General Service ................................. . 

The Marine Corps ... . ... . . ... ..................... ... .... . .. . . . . 

7. A PROBLEM OF QUOTAS ................... ..... ............... . 

The Quota in Practice . .............. ... . ......... .. ... .... ...... . 

Broader Opportunities ......... . . . .... . ...... .... . .... . ........ . . 

Assignments ....... .......... ........ ............ .......... . ... . 

A New Approach ......... ....... . ...... . ....................... . 

The Quota System: An Assessment ................................ . 

8. SEGREGATION'S CONSEQUENCES .. ....... .................. .. . 

Discipline and Morale Among Black Troops ......................... . 

Improving the Status of the Segregated Soldier . ...................... . 

Xlll 

P11ge 

3 

3 

8 

13 

17 

17 

23 

34 

39 

46 

58 

59 

67 

75 

84 

99 

100 

112 

123 

123 

130 

143 

152 

153 

166 

170 

176 

182 

189 

194 

198 

202 

206 

206 

215 
Chapter Page 

Discrimination and the Postwar Army . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 

Segregation in Theory and Practice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 

Segregation: An Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 

9. THE POSTWAR NAVY .............. . ........................... 234 

The Steward's Branch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 

Black Officers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 3 

Public Image and the Problem of Numbers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248 

10. THE POSTWAR MARINE CORPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. .. . . . .. . . . . 253 

Racial Quotas and Assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 53 

Recruitment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 57 

Segregation and Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 

Toward Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 

11. THE POSTWAR AIR FORCE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270 

Segregatz'on and Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 

Impulse for Change. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280 

12. THE PRESIDENT INTERVENES ....... . .. ............... . ...... . .. 291 

The Truman Administration and Civil Rights. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292 

Ct'vtl Rights and the Department of Defense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 

Executive Order 9981 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 

13. SERVICE INTERESTS VERSUS PRESIDENTIAL INTENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 

Public Reaction to Executive Order 9981 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 

The Army: Segregatz'on on the Defensive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318 

A Dtfferent Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326 

The Navy: Business as Usual......... ..... ..................... ... . 331 

Adjustments in the Marine Corps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334 

The Air Force Plans for Limited Integration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338 

14. THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE.. . 343 

The Committee's Recommendations................................ 348 

A Summer of Discontent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362 

Assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368 

Quotas............... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371 

An Assessment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 75 

15 . THE ROLE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, 1949-1951... ... ...... 379 

Overseas Restrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385 

Congressional Concerns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389 

16. INTEGRATION IN THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397 

The Air Force, 1949-1951 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397 

The Navy and Executive Order 9981 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412 

17. THE ARMY INTEGRATES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428 

Race and Efficiency: 1950 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428 

Training.............. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434 

Performance of Segregated Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436 

Final Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440 

Integration of the Eighth Army . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442 

X1V 
Chapter Page 

Integration of the European and Continental Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448 

18. INTEGRATION OF THE MARINE CORPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460 

Impetus for Change. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461 

Assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466 

19. A NEW ERA BEGINS . . . . . . ... ..... . . . ..... .............. . . . ... .. 473 

The Civil Rights Revolutt'on . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474 

Limitations on Executive Order 9981 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479 

Integration of Navy Shipyards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483 

Dependent Children and Integrated Schools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487 

20. LIMITED RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION.... .................... 501 

The Kennedy Administration and Civil Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504 

The Department of Defense, 1961-1963 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510 

Discrimination Off the Military Reservation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511 

Reserves and Regulars: A Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517 

21. EQUAL TREATMENT AND OPPORTUNITY REDEFINED . . . . . . . . . . . . 530 

The Secretary Makes a Decision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530 

The Gesell Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535 

Reaction to a New Commitment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545 

The Gesell Committee: Final Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552 

22. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE MILITARY COMMUNITY . . . . . . . . . . . 556 

Creating a Civil Rights Apparatus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558 

Fighting Discrimination Within the Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566 

23. FROM VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE TO SANCTIONS .... . . . ......... 581 

Development of Voluntary Action Programs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581 

Civil Rights, 1964-1966. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586 

The Civil Rights Act and Voluntary Compliance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590 

The Limits of Voluntary Compliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593 

24. CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 609 

Why the Services Integrated ............ .......... .......... . .... .. 609 

How the Services Integrated, 1946-1954.. . .... ...... . .. . ..... ...... . 614 

Equal Treatment and Opportunity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 619 

NOTE ON SOURCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625 

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635 

Illustrations 

Crewmen of the USS Miami During the Civil War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 

Buffalo Soldiers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 

Integration in the Army of 1888. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 

XV 
Page 

Gunner's Gang on the USS Maine ... . .................. ... . .... . . . . . . . . . 11 

General John J. (Black Jack) Pershing Inspects Troops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 

Heroes of the 369th Infantry, February 1919. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 

Judge William H. Hastie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 

General George C. Marshall and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson. . . . . . . . . . . . 21 

Engineer Construction Troops in Liberia, July 1942 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 

Labor Battalion Troops in the Aleutian Islands, May 194 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 

Sergeant Dressing the Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 

Pilots of the 332d Fighter Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 

Service Club, Fort Huachuca . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 

93d Division Troops in Bougainville, Aprill944 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 

Gun Crew of Battery B, 598th Field Artillery, September 1944.. . .... .. .. ..... 47 

Tankers of the 761st Medium Tank Battalion Prepare for Action............... 48 

W AAC Replacements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 

Volunteers for Combat in Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 

Road Repairmen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 

Mess Attendant, First Class, Doric Miller Addressing Recruits at Camp Smalls. . . . 60 

Admiral Ernest J. King and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox . .. . ............. 61 

Crew Members of USS Argonaut, Pearl Harbor, 1942 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 

Messmen Volunteer as Gunners, July 1942 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 

Electrician Mates String Power Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 

Laborers at Naval Ammunition Depot... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 

Seabees in the South Pacific . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 

Lt. Comdr. Christopher S. Sargent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 

US$ Mason . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 

First Black Officers in the Navy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 

Lt. (jg.) Harriet Ida Pickens and Ens. Frances Wills.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 

Sailors in the General Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 

Security Watch in the Marianas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 

Specialists Repair Aircraft. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 

The 22d Special Construction Battalion Celebrates V-J Day. . . . .. . . . .... . .... 97 

Marines of the 51st Defense Battalion, Montford Point, 1942 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 

Shore Party in Training, Camp LeJeune, 1942 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 

D-day on Peleliu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 

Medical Attendants at Rest, Peleliu, October 1944.... . . . ....... . . . ......... 107 

Gun Crew of the 52d Defense Battalion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 

Crewmen of USCG Lifeboat Station, Pea Island, North Carolina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 

Coast Guard Recruits at Manhattan Beach Training Station, New York . . . . . . . . . 113 

Stewards at Battle Station on the Cutter Campbell . . . ,. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 

Shore Leave in Scotland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 

Lt. Comdr. Carlton Skinner and Crew of the USS Sea Cloud. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 

Ens. Jos'eph J. Jenkins and Lt. (jg .) Clarence Samuels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 

President Harry S. Truman Addressing the NAACP Convention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 

Assistan~ Secretary of War John J. McCloy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 

XVl 
Page 

Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War Truman K. Gibson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 

Company I, 370th Infantry, 92d Division, Advances Through Cascina, Italy . . . . . 134 

92d Division Engineers Prepare a Ford (or Arno River Traffic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 

Lester Granger Interviewing Sailors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 

Granger With Crewmen of a Naval Yard Craft............................. 147 

Lt. Gen. Alvan C. Gillem, U.S. Army............. . ...................... 154 

Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson................ . .................... 162 

Admiral Louis E. Denfeld, U.S. Navy......... . ................... . ...... 167 

General Gerald C. Thomas, U.S. Marine Corps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 

Lt. Gen. WillardS. Paul ........ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 

Adviser to the Secretary of War Marcus Ray. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 

Lt. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger Inspects 24th Infantry Troops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 

Army Speciafists Report for Airborne Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 

Bridge Players, Seaview Service Club, Tokyo, Japan, 1948. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 

24th Infantry Band, Gifu, Japan, 1947 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 

Lt. Gen. Clarence R. Huebner Inspects the 529th Military Police Company . . . . . . 216 

Reporting to Kitzingen ....... . ... ...... .. ... .... · . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218 

Inspection by the Chief of Staff .... ...................... . ... : . . . . . . . . . . 228 

Brig. Gen. Benjamin 0. Davis, Sr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 

Shore Leave in Korea. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 

Mess Attendants, USS Bushnell, 1918. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 

Mess Attendants, USS Wisconsin, 1953.......................... .... . . . . . 240 

Lt. Comdr. Dennis D. Nelson II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 

Naval Unit Passes in Review, Naval Advanced Base, Bremerhaven, Germany. . . . . 249 

Submariner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 

Marine Artillery Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254 

2d Lt. and Mrs. Frederick C. Branch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 

Training Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 

Damage Inspection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 

Col. Noel F. Parrish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 

Officers' Softball Team. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 

Checking Ammunition......... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 

Squadron F, 318th AAF Battalion, in Review.............................. 281 

Col. Benjamin 0. Davis, Jr., Commander, 477th Composite Group, 1945 . . . . . . 285 

Lt. Gen. Idwal H. Edwards................................ ......... .... 287 

Col. Jack F. Marc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288 

Walter F. White . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 

Truman's Civil Rights Campaign. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 

A. Philip Randolph............ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 

National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 April 1948 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306 

MP's Hitch a Ride. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320 

Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall Reviews Military Police Battalion . . . . . . 323 

Spring Formal Dance, Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, 1952 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 

Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330 

XVIl 
Page 

General Clifton B. Cates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335 

1st Marine Division Drill Team on Exhibition. ..... ........................ 337 

Secretary of the Air Force W. Stuart Symington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340 

Secretary of Defense Louis C. Johnson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 

Fahy Committee With President Truman and Armed Services Secretaries . . . . . . . 349 

E. W. Kenworthy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353 

Charles Fahy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354 

Roy K. Davenport. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355 

Press Nocice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361 

Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 70 

Chief of Staff of the Army J. Lawton Collins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 71 

"No Longer a Dream" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 77 

Navy Corpsman in Korea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382 

25th Division Troops in Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388 

Assistant Secretary of Defense Anna M. Rosenberg ............. ·. . . . . . . . . . . . . 391 

Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Eugene M. Zuckert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402 

Music Makers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408 

Maintenance Crew, 462d Strategic Fighter Squadron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410 

Jet Mechanics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411 

Christmas in Korea, 1950..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 7 

Rearming at Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418 

Broadening Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419 

Integrated Stewards Class Graduates, Great Lakes, 1953 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423 

WAVE Recruits, Naval Training Center, Bainbridge, Maryland , 1953 . . . . . . . . . . 425 

Rear Adm. Samuel L. Gravely, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426 

Moving Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431 

Men of Battery A, 159th Field Artillery Battalion..... ................. ..... 433 

Survivors of an Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon, 24th Infantry . . . . . . . . . 438 

General Matthew B. Ridgway, Far East Commander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444 

Machine Gunners of Company L, 14th Infantry, Hill931, Korea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446 

Color Guard, 160th Infantry , Korea, 1952 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448 

Visit With the Commander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454 

Brothers Under the Skin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455 

Marines on the Kansas Line, Korea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465 

Marine Reinforcements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466 

Training Exercises on lwo Jima, March 1954 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469 

Marines From Camp LeJeune . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470 

Lt. Col. Frank E. Petersen, Jr... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471 

Sergeant Major Edgar R. Huff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472 

Clarence Mitchell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475 

Congressman Adam Clayton Powell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484 

Secretary of the Navy Robert B. Anderson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486 

Reading Class in the Military Dependents School, Yokohama................. 495 

Civil Rights Leaders at the White House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503 

XV111 
, 

Pag~ 

President John F. Kennedy and President Jorge Allessandri. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509 

Secretary of Defense RobertS. McNamara. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516 

Adam Yarmolinsky........... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532 

James C. Evans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533 

The Gesell Committee Meets With the President... . . . .... ......... .. ... ... 541 

Alfred B. Fitt..... ....... ............... . . . . . ...................... .. 547 

Arriving in Viernam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560 

Digging In. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562 

Listening to the Squad Leader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567 

Supplying the Seventh Fleet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 76 

USAF Ground Crew, Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Vietnam...................... 580 

Fighter Pilots on the Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583 

Medical Examination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589 

Auto Pilot Shop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594 

Submarine Tender Duty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 600 

First Aid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 606 

Vietnam Patrol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611 

Marine Engineers in Vietnam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613 

Loading a Rocket Launcher. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615 

American Sailors Help Evacuate a Vietnamese Child . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 618 

Booby Trap Victim from Company B. 47th Infantry......................... 619 

Camaraderie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 622 

All illustrations are from the files of the Department of Defense and the National 

Archives and Records Service with the exception of the pictures on pages 6 and 10, 

courtesy of William G. Bell; on page 20, by Fabian Bachrach, courtesy of Judge William 

H. Hastie; on page 120, courtesy of Carlton Skinner; on page 297, courtesy of the 

Washington Star; on page 361, courtesy of the Afro-American Newspapers; on page 

377. courtesy of the Sengstacke Newspapers; and on page 475, courtesy of the 

Washington Bureau of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored 

People. 

No. 

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

Tables 

Classification of All Men Tested From March 1941 Through December 1942 25 

AGCT Percentages in Selected World War II Divisions.................. 138 

Percentage of Black Enlisted Men and Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395 

Disposition of Black Personn el at Eight Air Force Bases, 1949 . . . . . . . . . . . . 403 

Racial Composition of Air Force Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404 

Black Strength in the Air Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405 

Racial Composition of the Training Command, December 1949 . . . . . . . . . . 406 

XIX 
No. Page 

8. Black Manpower, U.S. Navy.............. . ........... .... ... . . . . . . 416 

9 . . Worldwide Distribution of Enlisted Personnel by Race, October 1952.. . . . . 458 

10. Distribution of Black Enlisted Personnel by Branch and Rank, 31 October 

1952 . ........... . ................. ... .. . ..................... 458 

11. BlackMarines,l949-1955 . . ... .. ............................... . . 463 

12. Defense Installations With Segregated Public Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491 

13. Black Strength in the Armed Forces for Selected Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 22 

14. Estimated Perce·nrage Distribution of Draft-Age Males 10 U.S. 

Population by AFQT Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523 

15. Rate of Men Disqualified for Service in 1962 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523 

16. Rejection Rares for Failure To Pass Armed Forces Mental Test, 1962 . . . . . . . 524 

17. Nonwhite Inductions and First Enlistments, Fiscal Years 1953-1962 . . . . . . . 525 

18. Distribution of Enlisted Personnel in Each Major Occupation, 1956 . . . . . . . 525 

19. Occupational Group Distribution by Race, All DOD, 1962...... ... .. ... 525 

20. Occupational Group Distribution of Enlisted Personnel by Length of Service , and Race . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526 

21. Percentage Distribution of Navy Enlisted Personnel by Race, AFQT 

Groups and Occupational Areas, and Length of Service, 1962...... . . .. . 526 

22. Percentage Distribution of Blacks and Whites by Pay Grade, All 

DOD. 1962 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527 

23. Percentage Distribution of Navy Enlisted Personnel by Race, AFQT 

Groups, Pay Grade, and Length of Service, 1962 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528 

24 . Black Percentages, 1962- 1968 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568 

25. Rates for First Reenlistments, 1964- 1967 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569 

26. Black Attendance at the Military Academies, July 1968 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569 

27. Army and Air Force Commissions Granted at Predominately Black 

Schools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 70 

28. Percentage of Negroes in Certain Military Ranks, 1964-1966. . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 71 

29. Distribution of Servicemen in Occupational Groups by Race, 1967. ...... . 573 

XX 
INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES 

1940-1965 

CHAPTER 1 

Introduction 

In the quarter century that foJJowed American entry into World War II, the 

nation's armed forces moved from the reluctant inclusion of a few segregated 

Negroes to their routine acceptance in a racially integrated military establishment. Nor was this change confined to military instaHations. By the time it was 

over, the armed forces had redefined their traditional obligation for the welfare 

of their members to include a promise of equal treatment for black servicemen 

wherever they might be. In the name of equality of treatment and opportunity, 

the Department of Defense began to challenge racial injustices deeply rooted in 

American society. 

For all its sweeping implications, equality in the armed forces obviously had 

its pragmatic aspects. In one sense it was a practical answer to pressing political 

problems that had plagued several national administrations. In another, it was 

the services' expression of those liberalizing tendencies that were permeating 

American society during the era of civil rights activism. But to a considerable extent the policy of racial equality that evolved in this quarter century was also a 

response to the need for military efficiency. So easy did it become to 

demonstrate the connection between inefficiency and discrimination that, even 

when other reasons existed, military efficiency was the one most often evoked by 

defense officials to justify a change in racial policy. 

The Armed Forces Before 1940 

Progress toward equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces was an 

uneven process, the result of sporadic and sometimes conflicting pressures derived from such constants in American society as prejudice and idealism and 

spurred by a chronic shortage of military manpower. In his pioneering study of 

race relations, Gunnar Myrdal observes that ideals have always played a dominant role in the social dynamics of America. 1 By extension, the ideals that 

helped involve the nation in many of its wars also helped produce important 

changes in the treatment of Negroes by the armed forces. The democratic spirit 

embodied in the Declaration of Independence, for example, opened the Continental Army to many Negroes, holding out to them the promise of eventual 

freedom. 2 

1

Gunnar Myrdal, The American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modem Democracy, rev. ed. (New 

York: Harper Row, 1962), p. 1xi. 2Bcnjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Re11olution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina 

Press, 1961), pp. 182-85. The following brief summary of the Negro in the pre-World War II Army is based 

in part on the Quarles book and Roland C. McConnell, Negro Troops of Amebellum Louisiana: A History of 
4 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Yet the fact that the British themselves were taking large numbers of 

Negroes into their ranks proved more important than revolutionary jdealism in 

creating a place for Negroes in the American forces. Above all, the participation 

of both slaves and freedmen in the Continental Army and the Navy was a 

pragmatic response to a pressing need for fighting men and laborers. Despite 

the fear of slave insurrection shared by many colonists, some 5,000 Negroes, the 

majority from New England, served with the American forces in the Revolution, 

often in integrated units, some as artillerymen and musicians, the majority as 

infantrymen or as unarmed pioneers detailed to repair roads and bridges. 

Again, General Jackson's need for manpower at New Orleans explains the 

presence of the Louisiana Free Men of Color in the last great battle of the 

War of 1812. In the Civil War the practical needs of the Union Army overcame the Lincoln administration's fear of alienating the border states. When 

the call for volunteers f-ailed to produce the necessary men, Negroes were 

recruited, generally as laborers at first but later for combat. In all, 186,000 

Negroes served in the Union Axmy. In addition to those in the 149 segregated 

combat regiments and the labor units, thousands also served unofficially as 

laborexs, teamstexs, and cooks. Some 30,000 Negroes served in the Navy, about 

25 percent of its total Civil War strength. 

The influence of the idealism fostered by the abolitionist crusade should not 

be overlooked. It made itself felt during the early months of the war in the 

demands of Radical Republicans and some Union generals for black enrollment, 

and it brought about the postwar establishment of black units in the Regular 

Army. In 1866 Congress authorized the creation of permanent, all-black units, 

which in 1869 were designated the 9th and lOth Cavalry and the 24th and 25th 

Infantry. 

Military needs and idealistic impulses were not enough to guarantee uninterrupted racial progress; in fact, the status of black servicemen tended to reflect 

the changing patterns in American race relations. During most of the nineteenth century, for example, Negroes served in an integrated U.S. Navy, in the 

latter half of the century averaging between 20 and 30 percent of the enlisted 

strength. 3 But the employment of Negroes in the Navy was abruptly curtailed 

the Balta/ion of Free Mm of Color (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. 1968); Dudley T. Cornish, 

Sable Arm: Negro Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865 (New York: Nonon. 1966); William H. Leckie. 

The Buffalo Soldiers: A Narrative of the Negro Cavalry in the West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 

1969); William Bruce White. "The Military and the Melting Pot: The American Army and Minority Groups, 

186S- 1924 " (Ph.D. dissertation. University of Wisconsin. 1968); Marvin E. Fletcher, The Black Soldier and 

Officer itl the Umied States Army, 1891-1917 (Columbia: Universit)• of Missouri Press, 1974); Arthur E. 

Barbeau and Floretre Henri, Unknotun Soldiers: Black American Troops in World War I (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1974). For a generlbl survey of black soldiers in America's wars, see Jack Foncr, Blacks and 

the Military in American History: A New Perspective (New York: Praeger. 1974). 3Estimatcs vary; exact racial statisrics concerning the nineteenth century Navy arc difficult to locate. Sec 

Enlistment of Men of Colored Race. 23 Jan 42. a note appended to Hearings Before the General Board of the 

Navy. 1942, Operational Archives. Depanmem of the Navy (hereafter OpNavArchivcs). The following brief 

summary of the Negro in the pre-World War II Navy is based in pan on Foncr's Blacks and the Military in 

American History as we ll as Harold D. Langley. "The Negro in the Navy and Merchant Service, 1798-1860," 

journal of Negro HiJtory 52 (October 1967):273-86; Langley's Social Reform in the Umied Stales Navy, 

1798-1862 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 1967); Peter Karsten. The Naval Aristocracy: The Golden 
INTRODUCTION 5 

CREWMEN OF THE USS MIAMI DURING THE CIVIL WAR 

after 1900. Paralleling the rise of Jim Crow and legalized segregation in much of 

America was the cutback in the number of black sailors, who by 1909 were 

mostly in the galley and the engine room. In contrast to their high percentage of 

the ranks in the Civil War and Spanish-American War, only 6, 750 black sailors, 

including twenty-four women reservists (yeomanettes), served in World War I; 

they constituted 1.2 percent of the Navy's total enlistment. 4 Their service was 

limited chiefly to mess duty and coal passing, the latter becoming increasingly 

rare as the fleet changed from coal to oil. 

When postwar enlistment was resumed in 1923. the Navy recruited Filipino 

stewards instead of Negroes, although a decade later it reopened the branch to 

black enlistment. Negroes quickly took advantage of this limited opportunity, 

'their numbers rising from 441 in 1932 to 4,007 in June 1940, when they constituted 2.3 percent of the Navy's 170,000 totaL> Curiously enough, because 

Age of Annapolis a,Jd the Emergence of Modem American Navalism (New York: The Free Press. 1972); Fred· 

crickS. Harrod, Mtnmillg the New Navy: The Developmclll of a Modem Naval Enlisted Porce, 1899- 1940 

(Westport: Greenwood Press, 1978). 4

Ltr, Rcu Adm C. W. Nimitz. Actg Chief, Bureau of Navigation, to Rep. Hamilton Fish, 17 Jun 37. 

A9-IO, General Records of the Department of the Navy (hereafter GenRecsNav). 

)Memo, H. A. Badt, Bureau of Navigation, for Officer in Charge, Public Relations. 24 Jul 40, sub: 

Nef!roes in U.S. Navy, Nav-641, Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel (hereafter BuPcrsRecs). 
6 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

BUFFALO SOLDIERS. (Frederick Remington's 1888 sketch.) 

black reenlistment in combat or technical specialties had never been barred, a 

few black gunner's mates, torpedomen, machinist mates, and the like continued to serve in the 1930's. 

Although the Army's racial policy differed from the Navy's, the resulting 

limited, separate service for Negroes proved similar. The laws of 1866 and 1869 

that guaranteed the existence of four black Regular Army regiments also institutionalized segregation, granting federal recognition to a system racially separate 

and theoretically equal in treatment and opportunity a generation before the 

Supreme Court sanctioned such a distinction in Plessy v. Ferguson. 6 So important to many in the black community was this guaranteed existence of the four 

regiments that had served with distinction against the frontier Indians that few 

complained about segregation. In fact, as historian Jack Foner has pointed out, 

black leaders sometimes interpreted demands for integration as attempts to 

eliminate black soldiers altogether. 7 

The Spanish-American War marked a break with the post-Civil War tradition of limited recruitment. Besides the 3,339 black regulars, approximately 

6 163 U.S. 537 (1896). In this 1896 case concerning seg;egated seating on a Louisiana railroad, the Supreme 

Court ruled that so long as equality of accommodation existed. segregation could not in itself be considered 

discriminatory and therefore did not violate the equal rights provision of the Fourteenth Amendment. This 

''sef,arate but equal'' doctrine would prevail in American law for more than half a century. 

Foner, Blacks and the Military in Ameri'ca!J History, p. 66. 
INTRODUCTION 7 

10,000 black volunteers served in the Army during the conflict. World War I 

was another exception, for Negroes made up nearly 11 percent of the Army's 

total strength, some 404,000 officers and men.8 The acceptance of Negroes 

during wartime stemmed from the Army's pressing need for additional manpower. Yet it was no means certain in the early months of World War I that 

this need for men would prevail over the reluctance of many leaders to arm 

large groups of Negroes. Still remembered were the 1906 Brownsville affair, in 

which men of the 25th Infantry had allegedly fired on Texan civilians, and 

the August 1917 riot involving members of the 24th Infantry at Houston, 

Texas.<> Ironically, those idealistic impulses that had operated in earlier wars 

were operating again in this most Jim Crow of administrations.10 Woodrow 

Wilson's promise to make the world safe for democracy was forcing his 

administration to admit Negroes to the Army. Although it carefully maintained racially separate draft calls, the National Army conscripted some 

368,000 Negroes, 13.08 percent of all those drafted in World War I.U 

Black assignments reflected the opinion, expressed repeatedly in Army staff 

studies throughout the war, that when properly led by whites, blacks could perform reasonably well in segregated units. Once again Negroes were called on to 

perform a number of vital though unskilled jobs, such as construction work, 

most notably in sixteen specially formed pioneer infantry regiments. But they 

also served as frontline combat troops in the all-black 92d and 93d Infantry 

Divisions, the latter serving with distinction among the French forces. 

Established by law and tradition and reinforced by the Army staff's conviction that black troops had not performed well in combat, segregation survived 

to flourish in the postwar era. 12 The familiar practice of maintaining a few black 

units was resumed in the Regular Army, with the added restriction that Negroes 

were totally excluded from the Air Corps. The postwar manpower retrenchments common to all Regular Army units further reduced the size of the remaining black units. By June 1940 the number of Negroes on active duty stood 

at approximately 4,000 men, 1.5 percent of the Army's total , 'about the same 

proportion as Negroes in the Navy. 13 

8UJysscs Lee. The Employment of Neg ro Troops, United States Army in World War II (Washingwn: 

Government Priming Office, 1966), p. 5-. See also Army War College Historical Section. "The Colored 

Soldier in the U.S. Army." May 1942, p. 22, copy in CMH. 

9For a modern analysis of the two incidents and the effect of jim Crow on black units before World War I. 

see john D. Weaver. The Broumsville Raid (New York: W. W. Norton Co., 1970); Robert V. Haynes. A Night 

of Violence: The Houston Riot of 1917 (Bar.on Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. 1976). 100n the racial auitudcs of the Wilson administration. see Nancy J. Weiss. "The Negro and the New 

Freedom: Fighting Wilsonian Segregation.· · Political Science Quarterly 84 (March 1969) :61-79. 11 Special Report of the Provost Marrhal General 011 Operations of the Selective Service System to 

December 1918 (WashingtOn: Governmem Printing Office, 1919). p. 193. 12

The development of post· World War I policy is discussed in considerable detail in Lee. Employment of 

Negro Troops. Chapters I and II. Sec also U.S. Army War College Miscellaneous File 127-1 through 127-23 

and 127- 27. U.S. Army Military History Research Collection. Carlisle Barrarks (hereafter AMHRC). 

t}The 1940 strength figure is extrapola·ted from Mise Div. AGO. Returns Sec.<) Oct 39- 30 Nov 41. The 

figures do not include some 3.000 Negroes in National Guard units under state control. 
8 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Civil Rights and the Law in 1940 

The same constants in American society that helped decide the status of 

black servicemen in the nineteenth century remained influential between the 

world wars, but with a significant change. 14 Where once the advancing fortunes 

of Negroes in the services depended almost exclusively on the good will of white 

progressives, their welfare now became the concern of a new generation of black 

leaders and emerging civil rights organizations. Skilled journalists in the black 

press and counselors and lobbyists presenting such groups as the National 

Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National 

Urban League, and the National Negro Congress took the lead in the fight for 

racial justice in the United States. They represented a black community that for 

the most part lacked the cohesion, political awareness, and economic strength 

which would .characterize it in the decades to come. Nevertheless, Negroes had 

already become a recognizable political force in some parts of the country. Both 

the New Deal politicians and their opponents openly courted the black vote in 

the 1940 presidential election. · 

These politicians realized that the United States was beginning to outgrow 

its old racial relationships over which Jim Crow had reigned, either by law or 

custom, for more than fifty years. In large areas of the country where lynchings 

and beatings were commonplace, white supremacy had existed as a literal fact of 

life and death. 15 More insidious than the Jim Crow laws were the economic 

deprivation and dearth of educational opportunity associated with racial 

discrimination. Traditionally the last hired, first fired, Negroes suffered all the 

handicaps that came from unemployment and poor jobs, a condition further aggravated by the Great Depression. The "separate but equal" educational 

system dictated by law and the realities of black life in both urban and rural 

areas, north and south, had proved anything but equal and thus closed to 

Negroes a traditional avenue to advancement in American society. 

In these circumstances, the economic and humanitarian programs of the 

New Deal had a special appeal for black America. Encouraged by these programs and heartened by Eleanor Roosevelt's public support of civil rights, black 

voters defected from their traditional allegiance to the Republican Party in overwhelming numbers. But the civil rights leaders were already aware, if the 

average black citizen was not, that despite having made some considerable improvements Franklin Roosevelt never, in one biographer's words, "sufficiently 

14This discussion of civil rights in the pre-World War II period draws not only on Lee's E11tployment of 

Negro Troops, but also on Lee Finkle, Fomm for Protest: The Black PreiS During World War II (Cranbury: 

Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. 1975); Harvard Sitkoff, "Racial Militancy and Interracial Violence in the 

Second World War," journal of American History 58 (December 1971):661-81; Reinhold Schumann, "The 

Role of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the Imegration of the Armed 

Forces According to the NAACP Collection in the Library of Congress" (1971). in CMH; Richard M. 

Dalfiume, Desegregation of the Umied S1a1es Armed Forces: Figh1ing on Two Fronts, 1939-19.53 (Columbia: 

University of Missouri Press, 1969). 15The Jim Crow era is especially well described in Rayford W. Logan's The Negro in America11 Life and 

Though/: The Nadir, 1877- 1901 (New Yod<: Dial, 1954) and C. Vann Woodward's The Strange Career of 

jim Crotu, 3d ed. rev. (New York: Oxford University Press. 1974). 
INTRODUCTION 9 

challenged Southern traditions of white supremacy to create problems for 

himself.' '

16 Negroes, in shore, might benefit materially from the New Deal, but 

they would have to look elsewhere for advancement of their civil rights. 

Men like Walter F. White of the NAACP and the National Urban League's 

T. Arnold Hill sought to use World War II to expand opportunities for the black 

American. From the start they tried to translate the idealistic sentiment for 

democracy stimulated by the war and expressed in the Atlantic Charter into 

widespread support for civil rights in the United States. At the same time, in 

sharp contrast to many of their World War I predecessors, they placed a price on 

black support for the war effort: no longer could the White House expect this 

sizable minority to submit to injustice and yet close ranks with other Americans 

to defeat a common enemy. It was readily apparent to the Negro, if not to his 

white supporcer or his enemy, that winning equality at home was just as important as advancing the cause of freedom abroad. As GeorgeS. Schuyler, a widely 

quoted black columnist, put it: "If nothing more comes out of this emergency 

than the widespread understanding among white leaders that the Negro's 

loyalty is conditional, we shall not have suffered in vain. " 17 The NAACP spelled out the challenge even more clearly in its monthly publication, The Crisis, 

which declared itself "sorry for brutality, blood, and death among the peoples 

of Europe, just as we were sorry for China and Ethiopia. But the hysterical cries 

of the preachers of democracy for Europe leave us cold. We want democracy in 

Alabama, Arkansas, in Mississippi and Michigan, in the District of Columbia-in the Senate of the United States. '

118 

This sentiment crystallized in the black press's Double V campaign, a call for 

simultaneous victories over Jim Crow at home and fascism abroad. Nor was the 

Double V campaign limited to a small group of civil rights spokesmen; rather, it 

reflected a new mood that, as Myrdal pointed out, was permeating all classes of 

black society. 19 The quickening of the black masses in the cause of equal treatment and opportunity in the pre-World War II period and the willingness of 

Negroes to adopt a more militant course to achieve this end might well mark the 

beginning of the modern civil rights movement. 

Historian Lee Finkle has suggested that the militancy advocated by most of 

the civil rights leaders in the World War II era was merely a rhetorical device; 

that for the most part they sought to avoid violence over segregation, concentrating as before on traditional methods of protest. 20 This reliance on traditional 

methods was apparent when the leaders tried to focus the new sentiment among 

Negroes on two war-related goals: equality of treatment in the armed forces and 

equality of job opportunity in the expanding defense industries. In 1938 the 

16frank Freidel. F.D.R. and the South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965). pp. 71-102. 

Sec also Bayard Ruslin, Strategies for Freedom: The Changing Pallerm of Black Protest (New York: Columbia 

University Press, 1976). p. 16. 17Pimburgh Courier, December 21, 1940. 1

8The Crisis 47 (July 1940):209. 1

9Myrdal. American Dilemma, p. 744. 20Lee Finkle, "The: Conservative Aims of Militant Rhetoric: Black Protest During World War II," joumal 

of American His1ory 60 (December 1973):693. 
10 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

INTEGRATION IN THE ARMY OF 1888. The Army Band at Fort Duchesne, Utah, 

composed of soldiers from the black 9th Cavalry and the white 21st Infantry. 

Pittsburgh Courier, the largest and one of the most influential of the nation's 

black papers, called upon the President to open the services to Negroes and 

organized the Committee for Negro Participation in the National Defense Program. These moves led to an extensive lobbying effort that in time spread to 

many other newspapers and local civil rights groups. The black press and its 

satellites also attracted the support of several national organizations that were 

promoting preparedness for war, and these groups, in turn, began to demand 

equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces. 2 1 

The government began to respond to these pressures before the United 

States entered World War II. At the urging of the White House the Army announced plans for the mobil.ization of Negroes, and Congress amended several 

mobilization measures to define and increase the military training opportunities 

for Negroes. 22 The most important of these legislative amendments in terms of 

influence on future race relations in the United States were made to the Selective Service Act of 1940. The matter of race played only a small part in the 

debate on this highly controversial legislation, but during congressional hearings on the bill black spokesmen testified on discrimination against Negroes in 

the services. 23 These witnesses concluded that if the draft law did not provide 

specific guarantees against it, discrimination would prevail. 

21Some impression of the extent of this campaign and its effect on the War Department can be gained 

from the volume of correspondence produced by the Pittsburgh Courier campaign and filed in AG 322.99 

(2-23- 38)(1). 22Thc Army's plans and amcndmems are treated in great detail in Lee, EmploymerJI of Negro Troops. 23Hcarings Before the Committee on Military Affairs, House of Representatives, 76th Con g .. 3d sess., on 

H.R. 10132, Selective Compulsory Military Training and Ser11ice, pp. ~8~-90. 
INTRODUCTION 11 

GUNNER'S GANG ON THE USS MAINE 

A majority in both houses of Congress seemed to agree. During floor debate 

on the Selective Service Act, Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York proposed 

an amendment to guarantee to Negroes and other racial minorities the privilege 

of voluntary enlistment in the armed forces. He sought in this fashion to correct 

evils described some ten days earlier by Rayford W. Logan, chairman of the 

Committee for Negro Participation in the National Defense, in testimony 

before the House Committee on Military Affairs. The Wagner proposal triggered critical comments and questions. Senators John H. Overton and Allen J. 

Ellender of Louisiana viewed the Wagner amendment as a step toward ''mixed'' 

units. Overton, Ellender, and Senator Lister Hill of Alabama proposed that the 

matter should be "left to the Army." Hill also attacked the amendment 

because it would allow the enlistment of Japanese-Americans, some of whom he 

claimed were not loyal to the United States. 24 

No filibuster was attempted, and the Wagner amendment passed the Senate 

easily, 53 to 21. It provided 

that any person between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five regardless of race or color 

shall be afforded an opportunity voluntarily to enlist and be inducted into the land and 

naval forces (including aviation units) of the United States for the training and service 

prescribed in subsection (b), if he is acceptable to the land or naval forces for such training and service. 2

s 

The Wagner amendment was aimed at volunteers for military service. Congressman Hamilton Fish, also of New York, later introduced a similar measure 

24Congressiona/ Record, 76th Cong., 3d sess., vol. 86, p. 10890. 2Ss4 U.S. Stat. 885 (1940). 
12 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

GENERAL PERSHING. AEF COMMANDER. lNSPECfS TROOPS of the 802d {Colored) 

Pioneer Regiment in France, 1918. 

in the House aimed at draftees. The Fish amendment passed the House by a 

margin of 121 to 99 and emerged intact from the House-Senate conference. The 

law finally read that in the selection and training of men and execution of the 

law "there shall be no discrimination against any person on account of race or 

color.' '

26 

The Fish amendment had little immediate impact upon the services' racial 

patterns. As long as official policy permitted separate draft calls for blacks and 

whites and the officially held definition of discrimination neatly excluded 

segregation-and both went unchallenged in the courtS-segregation would remain entrenched in the armed forces. Indeed, the rigidly segregated services, 

their ranks swollen by the draft, were a particular frustration to the civil rights 

forces because they were introducing some black citizens to racial discrimination 

more pervasive than any they had ever endured in civilian life. Moreover, as the 

services continued to open bases throughout the country, they actually spread 

federally sponsored segregation into areas where it had never before existed with 

the force of law. In the long run, however, the 1940 draft law and subsequent 

draft legislation had a strong influence on the armed forces' racial policies. They 

created a climate in which progress could be made toward integration within the 

services. Although not apparent in 1940, the pressure of a draft-induced flood 

26Jbid. Fish commanded black troops in World War I. Captain of Company K, Fifteenth New York National Guard (Colored), which subsequently became the 369th Infantry. Fish sciVed in the much decorated 

93d Division in the French sector of the Western Front. 
INTRODUCTION 

HEROES OF THE 369TH INFANTRY. W£nners of the Croix de Guerre arrive £n New 

York Harbor, February 1919. 

13 

of black conscripts was to be a principal factor in the separate decisions of the 

Army, Navy, and Marine Corps to integrate their units. 

To Segregate Is To Discriminate 

As with all the administration's prewar efforts to increase opportunities for 

Negroes in the armed forces, the Selective Service Act failed to excite black enthusiasm because it missed the point of black demands. Guarantees of black 

participation were no longer enough. By 1940 most responsible black leaders 

shared the goal of an integrated armed forces as a step toward full participation 

in the benefits and responsibilities of American citizenship. 

The White House may well have thought that Walter White of the NAACP 

singlehandedly organized the demand for integration in 1939, but he was 

merely applying a concept of race relations that had been evolving since World 

War I. In the face of ever-worsening discrimination, White's generation of civil 

rights advocates had rejected the idea of the preeminent black leader Booker T. 

Washington that hope for the future lay in the development of a separate and 
14 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

strong black community. Instead, they gradually came to accept the argument 

of one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of 

Colored People, William E. B. DuBois, that progress was possible only when 

Negroes abandoned their segregated community to work toward a society open 

to both black and w~ite. By the end of the 1930's this concept had produced a 

fundamental change in civil rights tactics and created the new mood of assertiveness that Myrdal found in the black community. The work of White and 

others marked the beginning of a systematic attack against Jim Crow. As the 

most obvious practitioner of Jim Crow in the federal government, the services 

were the logical target for the first battle in a conflict that would last some thirty 

years. 

This evolution in black attitudes was clearly demonstrated in correspondence 

in the 1930's between officials of the NAACP and the Roosevelt administration 

over equal treatment in the armed forces. The discussion began in 1934 with a 

series of exchanges between Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur and NAACP 

Counsel Charles H. Houston and continued through the correspondence between White and the administration in 1937. The NAACP representatives rejected MacArthur's defense of Army policy and held out for a quota guaranteeing that Negroes would form at least 10 percent of the nation's military 

strength. Their emphasis throughout was on numbers; during these first exchanges, at least, they fought against disbandment of the existing black 

regiments and argued for similar units throughout the service. 27 

Yet the idea of integration was already strongly implied in Houston's 1934 

call for "a more united nation of free citizens, " 28 and in February 193 7 the 

organization emphasized the idea in an editorial in The Crisis, asking why black 

and white men could not fight side by side as they had in the Continental 

Army. 29 And when the Army informed the NAACP in September 1939 that 

more black units were projected for mobilization, White found this solution unsatisfactory because the proposed units would be segregated. 30 If democracy was 

to be defended, he told the President, discrimination must be eliminated from 

the armed forces. To this end, the NAACP urged Roosevelt to appoint a commission of black and white citizens to investigate discrimination in the Army 

and Navy and to recommend the removal of racial barriers. 31 

The White House ignored these demands, and on 17 October the secretary 

to the President, Col. Edwin M. Watson, referred White to a War Department 

report outlining the new black units being created under presidential authorization. But the NAACP leaders were not to be diverted from the main chance. 

27See especially Ltr, Houston to CofS, I Aug and 29 Aug 34; Ltr, CofS to Houston, 20 Aug 34; Lu, Maj 

Gen Edgar T. Conley, Actg AG, USA, to Walter White, 25 Nov 35; Lu, Houston to Roosevelt, 8 Oct 37; Ltr, 

Houston to SW, 8 Oct 37. See also Elijah Reynolds. Colored Soldiers 1111d the Regular Army (NAACP Pam· 

ph let, December 10, 1934). All in C-376. NAACP Collection, Library of Congress. 28Jbid. Ltr. Houston to CofS. 1 Aug 34 . 2

9The Crisis 46 (1939):49. 241, 337 . 

3°Ltr, Presley Holliday to White, 11 Sep 39: Ltr, White to Holliday, 15 Sep 39. Both in C-376, NAACP 

Collection, LC. 

31Lu, White to Roosevelt, 15 Sep 39, in C-376, NAACP Collection, LC. This letter was later released to 

the press. 
INTRODUCTION 15 

Thurgood Marshall, then the head of the organization's legal department, 

recommended that White tell the President "that the NAACP is opposed to 

the separate units existing in the armed forces at the present time.' '

32 

When his associates failed to agree on a reply to the administration, White 

decided on a face-to-face meeting with the President. 33 Roosevelt agreed to confer with White, Hill of the Urban League, and A. Philip Randolph, head of the 

Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the session finally taking place on 27 

September 1940. At that time the civil rights officials outlined for the President 

and his defense assistants what they called the ''important phases of the integration of the Negro into military aspects of the national defense program." Central to their argument was the view that the Army and Navy should accept men 

without regard to race. According to White, the President had apparently never 

considered the use of integrated units, but after some discussion he seemed to 

accept the suggestion that the Army could assign black regiments or batteries 

alongside white units and from there "the Army could 'back into' the formation of units without segregation.' '

34 

Nothing came of these suggestions. Although the policy announced by the 

White House subsequent to the meeting contained concessions regarding the 

employment and distribution of Negroes in the services, it did not provide for 

integrated units. The wording of the press release on the conference implied, 

moreover, that the administration's entire program had been approved by 

White and the others. To have their names associated with any endorsement of 

segregation was particularly infuriating to these civil rights leaders, who immediately protested to the President. 35 The White House later publicly absolved 

the leaders of any such endorsement, and Press Secretary Early was forced to 

retract the " damaging impression" that the leaders had in any way endorsed 

segregation. The President later assured White, Randolph, and Hill that further 

policy changes would be made to insure fair treatment for Negroes. 

36 

Presidential promises notwithstanding, the NAACP set out to make integration of the services a matter of overriding interest to the black community during the war. The organization encountered opposition at first when some black 

leaders were willing to accept segregated units as the price for obtaining the formation of more all-black divisions. The NAACP stood firm, however, and 

demanded at its annual convention in 1941 an immediate end to segregation. 

In a related move symbolizing the growing unity behind the campaign to integrate the military, the leaders of the March on Washington Movement, a 

32Mcmo. Marshall for White, 28 Oct 39; Lrr, Sccy to the President tO White, 17 Oct 39. Both in C-376, 

NAACP Collcccioo, LC. 33Mcmo, White for Roy Wilkins ct al., Oct 39; Ltr, Houston to White, Oct 39; Memo. Wilkins to White. 

23 Oct 39. All in C-376. NAACP Collection, LC. 

34Walter White, "Conference at White House, Friday, September 27, 11:35 A.M .. " Arthur B. Spingam 

Papers. Library of Congress. Sec also White's A Man Called While (New York: Viking Press, 1948), pp. 

186-87. 35Lrr. White to Stephen Early, 21 Oct 40. Sec also Memo. White for R. S. W. (Roy Wilkins), 18 Oct 40. 

Both in C-376, NAACP Colleccion, LC. See also Ltr, S. Early to White, 18 Oct 40, Incl ro Ltr, White to 

Spingarn, 24 Oct 40, Spingarn Papers, LC. 

36Whitc, A MatJ Called While, pp. 187-88. 
16 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

group of black activists under A. Philip Randolph, specifically demanded the 

end of segregation in the Army and Navy. The movement was the first since the 

days of Marcus Garvey to involve the black masses; in fact Negroes from every 

social and economic class rallied behind Randolph, ready to demonstrate for 

equal treatment and opportunity. Although some black papers objected to the 

movement's militancy, the major civil rights organization showed no such 

hesitancy. Roy Wilkins, a leader of the NAACP, later claimed that Randolph 

could supply only about 9,000 potential demonstrators and that the NAACP 

had provided the bulk of the movement's participants. 37 

Although Randolph was primarily interested in fair employment practices, 

the NAACP had been concerned with the status of black servicemen since 

World War I. Reflecting the degree of NAACP support, march organizers included a discussion of segregation in the services when they talked with President Roosevelt in June 1941. Randolph and the others proposed ways to abolish 

the separate racial units in each service, charging that integration was being 

frustrated by prejudiced senior military officials. 38 

The President's meeting with the march leaders won the administration a 

reprieve from the threat of a mass civil rights demonstration in the nation's 

capital, but at the price of promising substantial reform in minority hiring for 

defense industries and the creation of a federal body, the Fair Employment Practices Committee, to coordinate the reform . While it prompted no similar 

reform in the racial policies of the armed forces, the March on Washington 

Movement was nevertheless a significant milestone in the services' racial 

history. 39 It signaled the beginning of a popularly based campaign against 

segregation in the armed forces in which all the major civil rights organizations, 

their allies in Congress and the press, and many in the black community would 

hammer away on a single theme: segregation is unacceptable in a democratic 

society and hypocritical during a war fought in defense of the four freedoms. 

37Roy Wilkins Oral History Interview, Columbia University Oral History Collection. See also A. Philip 

Randolph, "Why Should We March," Suroey Graphic 31 (November 1942), as reprinted in John H. Franklin 

and Isidore Starr, eds., The Negro in T1·uentieth Century America (New York: Random House, 1967). 

3

8White, A Man Called White, pp. 190- 93. 39Herbert Garfinkle, When Negroes March: The March on Washington Movement in the Organizational 

Poltiics of FEPC (Glencoe: The Free Press. 1959), provides a comprehensive account of the aims and 

achievements of the movement. 
CHAPTER2 

World War II: The Army 

Civil rights leaders adopted the " Double V" slogan as their rallying cry during World War II. Demanding victory against fascism abroad and discrimination at home, they exhorted black citizens to support the war effort and to fight 

for equal treatment and opportunity for Negroes everywhere. Although segregation was their main target, their campaign was directed against all forms of 

discrimination, especially in the armed forces. They flooded the services with 

appeals for a redress of black grievances and levied similar demands on the 

White House, Congress, and the courts. 

Black leaders concentrated on the services because they were public institutions, their officials sworn to uphold the Constitution. The leaders understood, 

too, that disciplinary powers peculiar to the services enabled them to make 

changes that might not be possible for other organizations; the armed forces 

could command where others could only persuade. The Army bore the brunt of 

this attention, but not because its policies were so benighted. In 194 1 the Army 

was a fairly progressive organization, and few institutions in America could 

match its record. Rather, the civil rights leaders concentrated on the Army 

because the draft law had made it the nation's largest employer of minority 

groups. 

For its part, the Army resisted the demands, its spokesmen contending that 

the service's enormous size and power should not be used for social experiment, 

especially during a war. Further justifying their position, Army officials pointed 

out that their service had to avoid conflict with prevailing social attitudes, particularly when such attitudes were jealously guarded by Congress. In this period 

of continuous demand and response, the Army developed a racial policy that remained in effect throughout the war with only superficial modifications 

sporadically adopted to meet changing conditions. 

A War Policy: Reaffirming Segregation 

The experience of World War I cast a shadow over the formation of the Army's racial policy in World War II.

1 The chief architects of the new policy, and 

many of its opponents, were veterans of the first war and reflected in their 

judgments the passions and prejudices of that era. 2 Civil rights activists were 

1

This survey of the: Army and the: Negro in World War II is based principally on Lee's E11Jploymefll of 

Negro Troops. A comprehensive: account of the: dc:vc:lopmc:m of policy, the: mobilization of black soldiers, and 

their usc in the: various theaters and units of World War II, this book is an indispensable: source for any serious 

student of the subject. 2Por examples of how World War I mjlicary experiences affected the thinking of the: civil rights advocates 
18 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940- 1965 

determined to eliminate the segregationist practices of the 1917 mobilization 

and to win a fair representation for Negroes in the Army. The traditionalists of 

the Army staff, on the other hand, were determined to resist any radical change 

in policy. Basing their arguments on their evaluation of the performance of the 

92d Division and some other black.units in World War I, they had made, but 

not publicized, mobilization plans that recognized the Army's obligation to 

employ black soldiers yet rigidly maintained the segregationist policy of World 

WarP These plans increased the number of types of black units to be formed 

and even provided for a wide distribution of the units among all the arms and 

services except the Army Air Forces and Signal Corps, but they did not explain 

how the skilled Negro, whose numbers had greatly increased since World War I, 

could be efficiently used within the limitations of black units. In the name of 

military efficiency the Army staff had, in effect, devised a social rather than a 

military policy for the employment of black troops. · 

The White House tried to adjust the conflicting demands of the civil rights 

leaders and the Army traditionalists. Eager to placate and willing to compromise, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought an accommodation by directing the War Department to provide jobs for Negroes in all parts of the Army. 

The controversy over integration soon became more public, the opponents less 

reconcilable; in the weeks following the President's meeting with black 

representatives on 27 September 1940 the Army countered black demands for 

integration with a statement released by the White House on 9 October. To provide "a fair and equitable basis" for the use of Negroes in its expansion program, the Army planned to accept Negroes in numbers approximate to their 

proportion in the national population, about 10 percent. Black officers and 

enlisted men were to serve, as was then customary, only in black units that were 

to be formed in each major branch, both combatant and noncombatant, including air units to be created as soon as pilots, mechanics, and technical 

specialists were trained. There would be no racial intermingling in regimental 

organizations because the practice of separating white and black troops had, the 

Army staff said, proved satisfactory over a long period of time. To change would 

destroy morale and impair preparations for national defense. Since black units 

in the Army were already ''going concerns, accustomed through many years to 

the present system" of segregation, "no experiments should be tried . . . at 

this critical time.' ' 4 

and military traditionalists of World War II, sec Lester B. Granger Oral History Interview, 1960, Columbia 

University Oral History Collection; Interview, Lee Nichols with Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee (c. 1953). For the influence of World War ll on a major contributor to postwar racial policy, see Interview, Lee Nichols with Harry 

S. Truman, 24 Jun B. Last two in Nichols Collection, CMH. These interviews arc among many compiled by 

Nichols as part of his program associated with the production of Breakthrough on the Color Front (New York: 

Random House, 1954). Nichols, a journalist, presented this collection of interviews, along with other 

documents and materials, to the Center of Military History in 1972. The interviews have proved to be a 

va.luable supplement to the official record. They capture the thoughts of a number of important participants, 

some no longer a live, at a time relatively close to the events under consideration. They have been checked 

against the sources whenever possible and found accurate. 

3Memo, ACofS, G-3, for Co£5, 3 Juo 40, sub: Employment of Negro Manpower, G-3/6541-527. 4

Memo, TAG for CG's et al., 16 Oct 40, sub: War Department Policy in Regard to Negroes, AG 291.21 

(l0-9-40) M-A-M. 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 19 

The President's "OK, F.D.R." on the War Department statement 

transformed what had been a routine prewar mobilization plan into a racial 

policy that would remain in effect throughout the war. In fact, quickly elevated 

in importance by War Department spokesmen who made constant reference to 

the "Presidential Directive," the statement would be used by some Army officials as a presidential sanction for introducing segregation in new situations, 

as, for example, in the pilot training of black officers in the Army Air Corps. 

Just as quickly, the civil rights leaders, who had expected more from the tone of 

the President's own comments and more also from the egalitarian implications 

of the new draft law, bitterly attacked the Army's policy. 

Black criticism came at an awkward moment for President Roosevelt, who 

was entering a heated campaign for an unprecedented third term and whose 

New Deal coalition included the urban black vote. His opponent, the articulate 

Wendell L. Willkie, was an unabashed champion of civil rights and was 

reportedly attracting a wide following among black voters. In the weeks 

preceding the election the President tried to soften the effect of the Army's announcement. He promoted CoL Benjamin 0. Davis, Sr., to brigadier general, 

thereby making Davis the first Negro to hold this rank in the Regular Army. He 

appointed the commander of reserve officers' training at Howard University, 

Col. Campbell C. Johnson, Special Aide to the Director of Selective Service. 

And, finally, he named Judge William H. Hastie, dean of the Howard University Law School, Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War. 

A successful lawyer, Judge Hastie entered upon his new assignment with 

several handicaps. Because of his long association with black causes, some civil 

rights organizations assumed that Hastie would be their man in Washington 

and regarded his duties as an extension of their crusade against discrimination. 

Hastie's War Department superiors, on the other hand, assumed that his was a 

public relations job and expected him to handle all complaints and mobilization 

problems as had his World War I predecessor, Emmett J. Scott. Both assumptions proved false. Hastie was evidently determined to break the racial logjam in 

the War Department, yet unlike many civil rights advocates he seemed willing 

to pay the price of slow progress to obtain lasting improvement. According to 

those who knew him, Hastie was confident that he could demonstrate to War 

Department officials that the Army's racial policies were both inefficient and 

unpatriotic.~ 

Judge Hastie spent his first ten months in office observing what was happening to the Negro in the Army. He did not like what he saw. To him , separating 

black soldiers from white soldiers was a fundamental error. First, the effect on 

black morale was devastating. ''Beneath the surface,'' he wrote, ''is widespread 

discontent. Most white persons are unable to appreciate the rancor and bitterness which the Negro, as a matter of self-preservation, has learned to hide 

beneath a smile, a joke, or merely an impassive face.'' The inherent paradox of 

trying to inculcate pride, dignity, and aggressiveness in a black soldier while 

~1he foregoing impressions are derived largely from Interviews, Lee Nichols with James C. Evans, who 

worked for Judge Hastie during World War II, and Ulysses G. Lee (c. 1953). Both in Nichols Collection, 

CMH. 
20 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

inflicting on him the segregationist's 

concept of the Negro's place in society 

created in him an insupportable tension. Second, segregation wasted black 

manpower, a valuable military asset. It 

was impossible, Hastie charged, to 

employ skilled Negroes at maximum efficiency within the traditionally narrow 

limitations of black units. Third, to insist on an inflexible separation of white 

and black soldiers was "the most 

dramatic evidence of hypocrisy'' in 

America's professed concern for preserving democracy. 

Although he appreciated the impossibility of making drastic changes 

overnight, Judge Hastie was disturbed 

because he found ''no apparent disposi-

}UDGE HASTIE tion to make a beginning or a trial of 

any different plan." He looked for 

some form of progressive integration by which qualified Negroes could be 

classified and assigned, not by race, but as individuals, according to their 

capacities and abilities. 

6 

Judge Hastie gained little support from the Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, or the Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, when he called for progressive integration. Both considered the Army's segregated units to be in accord with prevailing public sentiment against mixing the races in the intimate 

association of military life. More to the point, both Stimson and Marshall were 

sensitive to military tradition, and segregated units had been a part of the Army 

since 1863. Stimson embraced segregation readily. While conveying to the 

President that he was ''sensitive to the individual tragedy which went with it to 

the colored man himself," he nevertheless urged Roosevelt not to place "too 

much responsibility on a race which was not showing initiative in battle. " 7 

Stimson's attitude was not unusual for the times. He professed to believe in civil 

rights for every citizen, but he opposed social integration. He never tried to 

reconcile these seemingly inconsistent views; in fact, he probably did not consider them inconsistent. Stimson blamed what he termed Eleanor Roosevelt's 

"intrusive and impulsive folly" for some of the criticism visited upon the Army's racial policy, just as he inveighed against the "foolish leaders of the col6Memo, William H. Hastic for SW, with attachment, 22 Scp 41, sub: Survey and Recommendations Con· 

cerning the Integration of the Negro Soldiers Into the Army, G-1/15640-120. Sec also lntervs, Nichols with 

Evans and Lee. 7Stimson, a Republican. had been appointed by Roosevelt in 1940, along with Secretary of the Navy Frank 

Knox, in an effort to enlist bipartisan support for the administration's foreign policy in an election year. Stim-

~on brought a wealth of experience with him to the office, having served as Secretary of War under William 

Howard Taft and Secretary of State under Herbert Hoover. The quotations are from Stimson Diary, 25 

October 1940, Henry L. Stimson Papers, Yale University Library. 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 21 

GENERAL MARSHALL AND SECRETARY STIMSON 

ored race" who were seeking "at bottom social equality," which, he concluded, 

was out of the question "because of the impossibility of race mixture by marriage."8 Influenced by Under Secretary Robert P. Patterson, Assistant Secretary 

John J. McCloy, and Truman K. Gibson, Jr., who was Judge Hastie's successor, 

but most of all impressed by the pedormance of black soldiers themselves, Stimson belatedly modified his defense of segregation. But throughout the war he 

adhered to the traditional arguments of the Army's professional staff. 

General Marshall was a powedul advocate of the views of the Army staff. He 

lived up to the letter of the Army's regulations, consistently supporting 

measures to eliminate overt discrimination in the wartime Army. At the same 

time, he rejected the idea that the Army should take the lead in altering the 

racial mores of the nation. Asked for his views on Hastie's "carefully prepared 

memo,' '

9 General Marshall admitted that many of the recommendations were 

sound but said that Judge Hastie's proposals 

would be tantamount to solving a social problem which has perplexed the American 

people throughout the history of this nation. The Army cannot accomplish such a solu8

Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and Wpr (New York: Harper and 

Brothers, 1947), pp. 461 -64. The quotations arefrom Stimson Diary, 24 Jan 42. 

9Memo, USW for CofS . 6 Oc!4l, G-1115640- 120. 
22 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

tion and should not be charged with the undertaking. The settlement of vexing racial 

problems cannot be permitted to complicate the tremendous task of the War Department and thereby jeopardize discipline and morale. 10 

As Chief of Staff, Marshall faced the tremendous task of creating in haste a 

large Army to deal with the Axis menace. Since for several pr~ctical reasons the 

bulk of that Army would be trained in the south where its conscripts would be 

subject to southern laws, Marshall saw no alternative but to postpone reform. 

The War Department, he said, could not ignore the social relationship between 

blacks and whites, established by custom and habit. Nor could it.ignore the fact 

that the ''level of intelligence and occupational skill'' of the black population 

was considerably below that of whites. Though he agreed that the Army would 

reach maximum strength only if individuals were placed according to their 

abilities, he concluded that experiments to solve social problems would be 

"fraught with danger to efficiency, discipline, and morale." In sum, Marshall 

saw no reason to change the policy approved by the President less than a year 

before. 11 

The Army's leaders and the secretary's civilian aide had reached an impasse 

on the question of policy even before the country entered the war. And though 

the use of black troops in World War I was not entirely satisfactory even to its 

defenders, 12 there appeared to be no time now, in view of the larger urgency of 

winning the war, to plan other approaches, try other solutions, or tamper with 

an institution that had won victory in the past. Further ordering the thoughts of 

some senior Army officials w~s their conviction that wide-scale mixing of the 

races in the services might, as Under Secretary Patterson phrased it, foment 

social revolution. 13 

These opinions were clearly evident on 8 December 1941, the day the 

United States entered World War II, when the Army's leaders met with a group 

of black publishers and editors. Although General Marshall admitted that he 

was not satisfied with the department's progress in racial matters and promised 

further changes, the conference concluded with a speech by a representative of 

The Adjutant General who delivered what many considered the final word on 

integration during the war. 

The Army is made up of individual citizens of the United States who have pronounced 

views with respect to the Negro just as they have individual ideas with respect to other 

matters in their daily walk of life. Military orders, fiat, or dicta, will not change their 

10Mcmo, CofS for SW, I Dec 41, sub: Repon of Judge William H. Hastic, Civilian Aide to the Secretary 

of War, dared 22 Sep 41, OCS 20602-219. 11 Ibid. Sec also Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory (New York: The Viking Press, 

1973). pp. 96- 99. 12The Army staffs mobilization planning for black units in the 1930's generally relied upon the detailed 

testimony of the commanders of black units in World War I. This testimony, contained in documents submitted to the War Department and the Army War College. was often critical of the Army's employment of black 

troops, although rarely critical of segregation. The material is now located in the U.S. Army's Military History 

Research Collection, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. For discussion of the post-World War I review of the 

employment of black troops, see Lee'sEmployment of Negro Troops, Chapter I, and Alan M. Osur'sBiacks in 

the Army Air Forces During World War II: The Problem of Race Relations (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1977), Chapter I. 13Memo, USW for Maj Gen William Bryden (principal deputy chief of staff). 10 Jan 42, OCS 20602-250. 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 23 

viewpoints. The Army then cannot be made the means of engendering conflict among 

the mass of people betause of a stand with respect to Negroes which is not compatible 

with the posttion attained by the Negro in civil life . ... The Army is not a sociological 

laboratory; to be effective it must be organized and trained according to the principles 

which will insure success. Experiments tO meet the wishes and demands of the champions of every race and creed for the solution of their problems are a danger to efficiency, discipline and morale and would result in ultimate dcfeat. 14 

The civil rights advocates refused to concede that the discussion was over. 

Judge Hastie, along with a sizable segment of the black press, believed that the 

beginning of a world war was the time to improve military effectiveness by increasing black participation in that war. ~ They argued that eliminating segregation was part of the struggle to preserve democracy, the transcendent issue of the 

war, and they viewed the unvarying pattern of separate black units as consonant 

with the racial theories of Nazi Germany .

16 Their continuing efforts to eliminate 

segregation and discrimination eventually brought Hastie a sharp reminder 

from John J. McCloy. "Frankly, I do not think that the basic issues of this war 

are involved in the question of whether colored troops serve in segregated units 

or in mixed units and I doubt whether you can convince people of the United 

States that the basic issues of freedom are involved in such a question.'' For 

Negroes, he warned sternly, the basic issue was that if the United States lost the 

war, the lot of the black community would be far worse off, and some Negroes 

''do not seem to be vitally concerned about winning the war.'' What all 

Negroes ought to do, he counseled, was to give unstinting support to the war effort in anticipation of benefits certain to come after victory. 17 

Thus very early in World War II, even before the United States was actively 

engaged, the issues surrounding the use of Negroes in the Army were well defined and the lines sharply drawn. Was segregation, a practice in conflict with 

the democratic aims of the country, also a wasteful use of manpower? How 

would modifications of policy come-through external pressure or internal 

reform? Could traditional organizational and social patterns in the military services be changed during a war without disrupting combat readiness? 

Segregation and Efficiency 

In the years before World War II, Army planners never had to consider 

segregation in terms of manpower efficiency. Conditioned by the experiences of 

World War I, when the nation had enjoyed a surplus of untapped manpower 

even at the height of the war, and aware of the overwhelming manpower surplus 

'~Col Eugene R. Householder, TAGO. Speech Before Conference of Negro Editors and Publishers. 8 Dec 

41, AG 291.21 (12- 1-41) (1). 

!)Lee, Employment of Negro Troops, ch. VI. 

16Noteworthy is the fan that for several reasons not related to race (foe instance, language and nationality) 

the German Army also organized separate units. Its 162d Infantry Division was composed of troops from 

Turkestan and the Caucasus, and its 5th SS Panzer Division had segregated Scandinavian, Dutch, and Flemish 

rcgirncnts. Unlike the racially segregated U .S. Army, Germany's so-called 0St units were only administratively 

organized into separate divisions, and an Ost infantry bartalion was often integrated into a "regular" German 

infantry regiment as its fourth infantry battalion. Several allied armies also had segregated units, composed, 

for example, of Senegalese, Gurkhas, Maoris. and Algerians. 17Mcmo, ASW for Judge Hastic, 2 Jul 42, ASW 291.2. NT 1942. 
24 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

of the depression years, the staff formulated its mobilization plans with little 

regard for the economical use of the nation's black manpower. Its decision to 

use Negroes in proportion to their percentage of the population was the result of 

political pressures rather than military necessity. Black combat units were considered a luxury that. existed to indulge black demands. When the Army began 

to mobilize in 1940 it proceeded to honor its pledge, and one year after Pearl 

Harbor there were 399,454 Negroes in the Army, 7.4 percent of the total and 

7.95 percent of all enlisted troops. 18 

The effect of segregation on manpower efficiency became apparent only as 

the Army tried to translate policy into practice. In the face of rising black protest 

and with direct orders from the White House, the Army had announced that 

Negroes would be assigned to all arms and branches in the same ratio as whites. 

Several forces, however, worked against this equitable distribution. During the 

early months of mobilization the chiefs of those arms and services that had traditionally been all white accepted less than their share of black recruits and thus 

obliged some organizations, the Quartermaster Corps and the Engineer Corps in 

particular, to absorb a large percentage of black inductees. The imbalance 

worsened in 1941. In December of that year Negroes accounted for 5 percent of 

the Infantry and less than 2 percent each of the Air Corps, Medical Corps, and 

Signal Corps. The Quartermaster Corps was 15 percent black, the Engineer 

Corps 25 percent, and unassigned and miscellaneous detachments were 27 percent black. 

The rejection of black units could not always be ascribed to racism alone. 

With some justification the arms and services tried to restrict the number and 

distribution of Negroes because black units measured far below their white 

counterparts in educational achievement and ability to absorb training, according to the Army General Classification Test (AGCT). The Army had introduced 

this test system in March 1941 as its principal instrument for the measurement 

of a soldier's learning ability. Five categories, with the most gifted in category I, 

were used in classifying the scores made by the soldiers taking the test (Table 1). 

The Army planned to take officers and enlisted specialists from the 

top three categories and the semiskilled soldiers and laborers from the two 

lowest. 

Although there was considerable confusion on the subject, basically the 

Army's mental tests measured educational achievement rather than native intelligence, and in 1941 educational achievement in the United States hinged 

more on geography and economics than color. Though black and white recruits 

of comparable educations made comparable scores, the majority of Negroes 

came from areas of the country where inferior schools combined with economic 

and cultural poverty to put them at a significant disadvantage. 19 Many whites 

18Strength of the Army, 1 Jan 46. STM-30, p. 61. . 19Lec, Empfoy11tent of Negro Troops, pp. 241-~ 7. For an extended discussion of Army rest scores and 

their relation to education, sec Department of the Army, Marginal Man and Miftiary Service: A RevietiJ 

(Washington: Government Priming Office, 1966). This report was prepared for the Deputy Under Secretary 

of the Army for Personnel Management by a working group under the leadership of Dr. Samue.l King, Office 

of the Chief of Research and Development. 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 

TABLE 1-CLASSIFICATION OF ALL MEN TESTED fROM MARCH 1941 

THROUGH DECEMBER 1942 

AGCT Category White Black 

Number Percentage Number 

! ..... . ... . . . . ... 273,626 6.6 1,580 

II. . .. . .. . .. . . . . . . 1,154,700 28.e 14,891 

Ill . .. . . .. ... . .. . . 1,327' 164 32.1 54,302 

IV .. ..... . .. , .... 1,021,818 24.8 152,725 

v ...... ... ....... 351,951 8.5 216,664 

Total. ........ 4,129,259 100.0 440,162 

Source: Tab A, Memo. G-3 for CofS, 10 Apr43, AG 201.2 (19 Mar 43) (1). 

25 

Percentage 

0.4 

3.4 

12 .3 

34 .7 

49.2 

100.0 

suffered similar disadvantages, and in absolute numbers more whites than 

blacks appeared in the lower categories. But whereas the Army could distribute 

the low-scoring white soldiers throughout the service so that an individual unit 

could easily absorb its few iHiterate and semiliterate white men, the Army was 

obliged to assign an almost equal number of low-scoring Negroes to the relatively few black units where they could neither be absorbed nor easily trained. 

By the same token, segregation penalized the educated Negro whose talents 

were likely to be wasted when be was assigned to service units along with the unskilled. 

Segregation further hindered the efficient use of black manpower by complicating the training of black soldiers. Although training facilities were at a 

premium, the Army was forced to provide its training and replacement centers 

with separate housing and other facilities. With an extremely limited number of 

Regular Army Negroes to draw from, the service had to create cadres for the new 

units and find officers to lead them. Black recruits destined for most arms and 

services were assured neither units, billets, nor training cadres. The Army's solution to the problem: lower the quotas for black inductees. 

The use of quotas to regulate inductees by race was itself a source of tension 

between the Army and the Bureau of Selective Service. 20 Selective Service questioned the legality of the whole procedure whereby white and black selectees 

were delivered on the basis of separate calls; in many areas of the country draft 

boards were under attack for passing over large numbers of Negroes in order to 

fill these racial quotas. With the Navy depending exclusively on volunteers, 

Selective Service had by early 1943 a backlog of 300,000 black registrants who, 

according to their order numbers, should have been called to service but had 

been passed over. Selective Service wanted to eliminate the quota system 

altogether. At the very least it demanded that the Army accept more Negroes to 

adjust the racial imbalance of the draft rolls. The Army, determined to preserve 

the quota system, tried to satisfy the Selective Service's minimum demands, 

2

°For discussion of how Selective Service channeled manpower into the armed forces, sec Selective Service 

System, Special Monograph Number 10, Special Groups (Washington: Government Priming Office, 1953). 

ch. VIII, and Special Monograph Number 12. Quo/as, Calls, and Indue/ions (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1948), chs. IV-VI. 
26 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

ENGINEER CONSTRUC'f!ON TROOPS IN LIBERIA, }ULY 1942 

making room for more black inductees by forcing its arms and services to create 

more black units. Again the cost to efficiency was high. 

Under the pressure of providing sufficient units for Negroes, the organization of units 

for the sake of guaranteeing vacancies became a major goal. In some cases, careful examination of the usefulness of the types of units provided was subordinated to the need 

to create units which could receive Negroes. As a result, several types of units with 

limited military value were formed in some branches for the specific purpose of absorbing otherwise unwanted Negroes. Conversely, certain types of units with legitimate and 

important military functions were filled with Negroes who could not function efficiently 

in the tasks to which they were assigned. 21 

The practice of creating units for the specific purpose of absorbing Negroes 

was particularly evident in the Army Air Forces. 22 Long considered the most 

21

Lec, E1lJployt~Jent of Negro Troops, p. 113. 22The Army's air arm was reorganized several times. Designated as the Army Air Corps in 1926 (the sue· 

cessor to the historic Army Air Service), it became the Army A it Forces in the summer of 1941. This designa· 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 27 

LABOR BATIALION TROOPS lN THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, MAY 1943. Stevedores 

pause for a hot meal at Massacre Bay. 

recalcitrant of branches in accepting Negroes, the Air Corps had successfully exempted itself from the allotment of black troops in the 1940 mobilization plans. 

Black pilots could not be used, Maj. Gen. Henry H. Arnold, Chief of the Air 

Corps, explained, ''since this would result in having Negro officers serving over 

white enlisted men. This would create an impossible social problem. " 23 And 

this situation could not be avoided, since it would take several years to train 

black mechanics; meanwhile black pilots would have to work with white ground 

crews, often at distant bases outside their regular chain of command. The Air 

tion lasted until a separate U.S. Air Force was created in 1947. Organizationally, the Army was divided in 

March 1942 into three equal parts: the Army Ground Forces, the Army Service Forces (originally Services of 

Supply), and the Army Air Forces. This division was administrative. Each soldier continued to be assigned to a 

branch of the Army, for example. Infantry. Art.illery, or Air Corps, a title retained as the name of an Army 

branch. 

23Memo, CofAC for G-3, 31 May 40. sub: Employment of Negro Personnel in Air Corps Units, 

G-3/6541-Gen-527. 
28 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

SERGEANT DRESSING TH E LINE. Aviation squadron standiug inspection, 1943. 

Corps faced Strong opposition when both the civil rights advocates and the rest 

of the Army attacked this exclusion. The civil rights organizations wanted a 

place for Negroes in the glamorous Air Corps, but even more to the point the 

other arms and services wanted this large branch of the Army to absorb its fair 

share of black recruits, thus relieving the rest of a disproportionate burden. 

When the War Department supported these demands the Army Air Forces 

capitulated. Its 1941 mobilization plans provided for the formation of nine 

separate black aviation squadrons which would perform the miscellaneous tasks 

associated with the upkeep of aidields. During the next year the Chief of Staff 

set the allotment of black recruits for the air arm at a rate that brought over 

77,500 Negroes into the Air Corps by 1943. On 16 January 1941 Under 

Secretary Patterson announced the formation of a black pursuit squadron, but 

the Army Air Forces, bowing to the opposition typified by General Arnold's 

comments of the previous year, trained the black pilots in separate facilities at 

Tuskegee, Alabama, where the Army tried to duplicate the expensive training 

center established for white officers at Maxwell Field, just forty miles away. 24 

Black pilots were at first trained exclusively for pursuit flying, a very difficult 

kind of combat for which aN egro had to qualify both physically and technically 

24USAF Oral History Program. lntcrv with Maj Gen Noel F. Parrish (USAF. Ret.). 30 Mar 73. 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 29 

PILOTS OFTHE 332D FIGHTER GROUP BEING BRIEFED for combat mission in Italy. 

or else, in Judge Hastie's words, "not fly at all." 25 The 99th Fighter Squadron 

was organized at Tuskegee in 1941 and sent to the Mediterranean theater in 

April 1943. By then the all-black 332d Fighter Group with three additional 

fighter squadrons had been organized, and in 1944 it too was deployed to the 

Mediterranean. 

These squadrons could use only a limited number of pilots, far fewer than 

those black cadets qualified for such training. All applicants in excess of requirements were placed on an indefinite waiting list where many became 

overage or were requisitioned for other military and civilian duties. Yet when 

the Army Air Forces finally decided to organize a black bomber unit, the 477th 

Bombardment Group, in late 1943, it encountered a scarcity of black pilots and 

crewmen. Because of the lack of technical and educational opportunities for 

Negroes in America, fewer blacks than whites were included in the manpower 

pool, and Tuskegee, already overburdened with its manifold training functions 

and Jacking the means to train bomber crews, was unable to fill the training 

gap. Sending black cadets to white training schools was one obvious solution; 

the Army Air Forces chose instead to postpone the operational date of the 477th 

until its pilots could be trained at Tuskegee. In the end, the 477th was not 

William H. Hastic, On Clipped Wings: The Story of Jim Crow in the Army Air Corps (New York: 

NAACP. 1943). Based on War Department documents and statistics, this famous pamphlet was essentially an 

attack on the Army Air Corps. For a more comprehensive account of the Negro and the Army Air Forces, sec Osur, Blacks in the Army Air Forces Duri11g World War fl. 
30 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

declared operational until after the war. Even then some compromise with the 

Army Air Forces' segregation principles was necessary, since Tuskegee could not 

accommodate B-25 pilot transition and navigator-bombadier training. In 1944 

black officers were therefore temporarily assigned to formerly all-white schools 

for such training. Tuskegee's position as the sole and separate training center for 

black pilots remained inviolate until its closing in 1946, however, and its 

graduates, the "Tuskegee Airmen," continued to serve as a powerful symbol of 

armed forces segregation. 26 

Training for black officer candidates other than flyers, like that of most officer candidates throughout tthe Army, was integrated. At first the possibility of 

integrated training seemed unlikely, for even though Assistant Secretary of War 

for Air Robert A. Lovett had assured Hastie that officer candidate training 

would be integrated, the Technical Training Command announced plans in 

1942 for a segregated facility. Although the plans were quickly canceled the 

command's announcement was the immediate cause for Hastie's resignation 

from the War Department. The Air staff assured the Assistant Secretary of War 

in January of 1943 that qualified Negroes were being sent to officer candidate 

schools and to training courses "throughout the school system of the Technical 

Training Command.' '

27 In f:act, Negroes did attend the Air Forces' officer candidate school at Miami Beach, although not in great numbers. I11 spite of their 

integrated training, however, most of these black officers w,ere assigned to the 

predominantly black units at Tuskegee and Godman fields. 

The Army Air Forces found it easier to absorb the thousands of black 

enlisted men than to handle the black flying squadrons. For the enlisted men it 

created a series of units with vaguely defined duties, usually common labor jobs 

operating for the most part under a bulk allotment system that allowed the Air 

Forces to absorb great numbers of new men. Through 1943 hundreds of these 

aviation training squadrons, quartermaster truck companies, and engineer aviation and air base security battalions were added to the Air Forces' organization 

tables. Practically every American air base in the world had its contingent of 

black troops performing the service duties connected with air operations. 

The Air Corps, like the Armor and the Artillery branches, was able to form 

separate squadrons or battalions for black troops, but the Infantry and Cavalry 

found it difficult to organize the growing number of separate black battalions 

and regiments. The creation of black divisions was the obvious solution, 

although this arrangement would run counter to current practice, which was 

based in part on the Army's experience with the 92d Division in World War I. 

Convinced of the poor performance of that unit in 1918, the War Department 

had decided in the 1920's not to form any more black divisions. The regiment 

would serve as the basic black unit, and from time to time these regiments 

would be employed as organic elements of divisions whose other regiments and 

units would_ be white. In keeping with this decision, the black 9th and lOth 26For a derailed discussion of the black training program, see Osur, Blacks in the Army Air Forces During 

World War II, ch. III; lee, Employment of Negro Troops, pp. 461-66; Charles E. Francis, The Tuskegee 

Airmen: The Story of the Negro in the U.S. Air Force (Boston: Bruce Humphries, 195 5). 27Memo, CofAS for ASW, 12 Jan 43, ASW 291.2. 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 31 

Cavalry regiments were combined in October 1940 with white regiments to form 

the 2d Cavalry Division. 

Before World War II most black leaders had agreed with the Army's opposition to all-black divisions, but for different reasons. They considered that such 

divisions only served to strengthen the segregation pattern they so opposed. In 

the early weeks of the war a conference of black editors, including Walter 

White, pressed for the creation of an experimental integrated division of 

volunteers. White argued that such a unit would lift black morale, "have a 

tremendous psychological effect upon white America," and refute the enemy's 

charge that "the United States talks about democracy but practices racial 

discrimination and segregation. " 28 The NAACP organized a popular movement in support of the idea, which was endorsed by many important individuals 

and organizations. 29 Yet this experiment was unacceptable to the Army. Ignoring its experience with all-volunteer paratroopers and other special units, the 

War Department declared that the volunteer system was "an ineffective and 

dangerous" method of raising combat units. Admitting that the integrated 

division might be an encouraging gesture toward certain minorities, General 

Marshall added that ''the urgency of the present military situation necessitates 

our using tested and proved methods of procedure, and using them with all 

haste. '' 30 

Even though it rejected the idea of a volunteer, integrated division, the 

Army staff reviewed in the fall of 1942 a proposal for the assignment of some 

black recruits to white units. The Organization-Mobilization Group of G-3, 

headed by Col. Edwin W. Chamberlain, argued that the Army General 

Classification Test scores proved that black soldiers in groups were less useful to 

the Army than white soldiers in groups. It was a waste of manpower, funds, and 

equipment, therefore, to organize the increasingly large numbers of black 

recruits into segregated units. Not only was such organization wasteful, but 

segregation ''aggravated if not caused in its entirety'' the racial friction that was 

already plaguing the Army. To avoid both the waste and the strife, 

Chamberlain recommended that the Army halt the activation of additional 

black units and integrate black recruits in the low-score categories, IV and V, into white units in the ratio of one black to nine whites. The black recruits would 

be used as cooks, orderlies, and drivers, and in other jobs which required only 

the minimum basic training and which made up 10 to 20 percent of those in the 

average unit. Negroes in the higher categories, I through III, would be assigned 

to existing black units where they could be expected to improve the pedormance 

of those units. Chamberlain defended his plan against possible charges of 

discrimination by pointing out that the Negroes would be assigned wholly on 

the basis of native capacity, not race, and that this plan would increase the opportunities for Negroes to participate in the war effort. To those who objected 

on the grounds that the proposal meant racial integration, Chamberlain replied 

2

8Ltr, Walter White to Gen Marshall, 22 Dec 41, AG 291.21 (12-22-41). 2

9See C-279, 2, Volunteer Division Folder, NAACP Collection, Manuscripts Division, LC. 

lOLtr, CofS to Dorothy Canfield Fisher, 16 Feb 42, OCS 20602-254. 
32 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

that there was no more integration involved than in "the employment of 

Negroes as servants in a white household.'' 31 

The Chamberlain Plan and a variant proposed the following spring 

prompted discussion in the Army staff that clearly revealed general dissatisfaction with the current policy. Nonetheless, in the face of opposition from the service and ground forces, the plan was abandoned. Yet .because something had to 

be done with the mounting numbers of black draftees, the Army staff reversed 

the decision made in its prewar mobilization plans and turned once more to the 

concept of the all-black division. The 93d Infantry Division was reactivated in 

the spring of 1942 and the 92d the following fall. The 2d Cavalry Division was 

reconstituted as an all-black unit and reactivated in February 1943. These units 

were capable of absorbing 15,000 or more men each and could use men trained 

in the skills of practically every arm and service. 

This absorbency potential became increasingly important in 1943 when the 

chairman of the War Manpower Commission, Paul V. McNutt, began to attack 

the use of racial quotas in selecting inductees. He considered the practice of 

questionable legality, and the commission faced mounting public criticism as 

white husbands and fathers were drafted while single healthy Negroes wer~ not 

calledY Secretary Stimson defended the legality of the quota system. He did 

not consider the current practice "discriminatory in any way" so long as the 

Army accepted its fair percentage of Negroes. He pointed out that the Selective 

Service Act provided that no man would be inducted ' 'unless and until'' he was 

acceptable to the services, and Negroes were acceptable 11 only at a rate at which 

they can be properly assimilated. " 33 Stimson later elaborated on this theme, 

arguing that the quota system would be necessary even after the Army reached 

full strength because inductions would be limited to replacement of losses. 

Since there were few Negroes in combat, their losses would be considerably less 

than those of whites. McNutt disagreed with Stimson's interpretation of the law 

and announced plans to abandon it as soon as the current backlog of uninducted 

Negroes was absorbed, a date later setfor January 1944. 34 

A crisis over the quota system was averted when, beginning in the spring of 

1943, the Army's monthly manpower demands outran the ability of the Bureau 

of Selective Service to provide black inductees. So long as the Army requested 

more Negroes than the bureau could supply, little danger existed that McNutt 

would carry out his threatY But it was no victory for the Army. The question of 

the quota's legality remained unanswered, and it appeared that the Army might 

be forced to abandon the system at some future time when there was a black 

surplus. 

31Draft Memo (initialed E.W.C.) for Gen Edwards. G-3 Negro File, 1942-44 . Sec also Lee, Emp/o_yment of Negro Troops. pp. 152-5 7. 

32Ltr, Paul V. McNutt to SW, 17 Feb 43. AG 327.31 (9-19-40) (I) sec. 12. 

33Ltr, SW to McNutt, 20 Feb 43, AG 327.31 (9-19-40) (1) sec. 12. 

;4Ltr, McNutt to SW, 23 Mar43, AG 327.31 (9-19-40) (I) sec. 12. 35The danger was further reduced. when, as part of a national manpower allocation reform, President 

Roosevelt removed the Bureau of Selective Service from the War Manpower Commission's control and restored 

it to its independent status as the Selective Service System on 5 December 1943. See Stimson and Bundy, On 

Active Service, pp. 483-86; Theodore Wyckoff, "The Office of the Secretary of War Under Henry L. Stimson," in CMH. 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 33 

There were many reasons for the sudden shortage of black inductees in the 

spring of 1943. Since more Negroes were leaving the service for health or other 

reasons, the number of calls for black draftees had increased. In addition, local 

draft boards were rejecting more Negroes. But the basic reason for the shortage 

was that the magnitude of the war had finally turned the manpower surpluses of 

the 1930's into manpower shortages, and the shortages were appearing in black 

as well as white levies for the armed forces. The Negro was no longer a manpower luxury. The quota calls for Negroes rose in 1944, and black strength stood 

at 701,678 men in September, approximately 9.6 percent of the whole Army.

36 

The percentage of black women in the Army stayed at less than 6 percent of the 

Women's Army Auxiliary Corps-after July 1943 the Women's Army 

Corps-throughout the war. Training and serving under the same racial policy 

that governed the employment of men, the women's corps also had a black 

recruitment goal of 10 percent, but despite the active efforts of recruiters and 

generally favorable publicity from civil rights groups, the volunteer organization 

was unable to overcome the attitude among young black women that they 

would not be well received at Army posts. 37 

Faced with manpower shortages, the Army began to reassess its plan to 

distribute Negroes proportionately throughout the arms. and services. The demand for new service units had soared as the size of the overseas armies grew, 

while black combat units, unwanted by overseas commanders, had remained 

stationed in the United States. The War Department hoped to ease the strain on 

manpower resources by converting black comb?-t troops into service troops. A 

notable example of the wholesale conversion of such combat troops and one that 

received considerable notice in the press was the inactivation of the 2d Cavalry 

Division upon its arrival in North Africa in March 1944. Victims of the change 

included the 9th and lOth Cavalry regiments, historic combat units that had 

fought with distinction in the Indian wars, with Teddy Roosevelt in Cuba, and 

in the Philippine Insurrection. ;a 

By trying to justify the conversion, Secretary Stimson only aggravated the 

controversy. In the face of congressional questions and criticism in the black 

press, Stimson declared that the decision stemmed from a study of the relative 

abilities and status of training of the troops in the units available for conversion. 

If black units were particularly affected, it was because "many of the Negro 

units have been Wlable to master efficiently the techniques of modem 

weapons. " 39 Thus, by the end of 1944, the Army had abandoned its attempt to 

maintain a balance between black combat and service units, and during the rest 

of the war most Negroes were assigned to service units. 

36Strength of the Army, 1 Jan 46, STM-30, p . 60. 

HMemo, Dir of Mil Pers, SOS, for G-1, 12 Scp 42, SPGAM/322.5 f:':'/ AAC) (8-24-42). See also Edwin 

R. Embree, "Report of Informal Visit to Training Camp for WAAC's Des Moines, Iowa" (c. 1942), SPWA 

291.21. For a general description of Negroes in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, see Mattie E. Treadwell, 

The Women 's Army Corps, United States Army in World War II f:':'/ashington: Governmem Printing Office, 1954), especially Chapter Ill. See a lso Lee, E11tployment of Negro Troops, pp. 421-26. 

38Inactivation of the 2d Cavalry Division began in February 1944, and its headquarters completed the pro· 

cess on 10 May. The 9th Cavalry was inactivated on 7 March, the lOth Cavalry on 20 March 1944. 

39trr, SW to Rep. Hamilton Fish. 19 Feb 44, reprinted in U.S. Congress, House, Congressional Record, 

78th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 2007-08. 
34 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

According to the War Department, the relationship· between Negroes and 

the Army was a mutual obligation. Negroes had the right and duty to serve their 

country"to the best of their abilities; the Army had the right and the duty to see 

that they did so. True, the use of black troops was made difficult because their 

schooling had been largely inferior and their work therefore chiefly unskilled. 

Nevertheless, the Army staff concluded, all races were equally endowed for war 

and most of the less mentally alert could fight if properly led. 40 A manual on 

leadership observed: 

War Department concern with the Negro is focused directly and solely on the problem 

of the most effective use of colored troops .... the Army has no authority or intention 

to participate in social reform as such but does view the problem as a matter of efficient 

troop utilization. With an imposed ceiling on the maximum strength of the Army it is 

the responsibility of all officers to assure the most efficient use of the manpower as- igned. 1 

But the best efforts of good officers could not avail against poor policy. 

Although the Army maintained that Negroes had to bear a proportionate share 

of the casualties, by policy it assigned the majority to noncombat units and thus 

withheld the chance for them to assume an equal risk. Subscribing to the advantage of making full use of individual abilities, the Army nevertheless continued 

to consider Negroes as a group and to insist tha• military efficiency required 

racially segregated units. Segregation in turn burdened the service with the 

costly provision of separate facilities for the races. Although a large nUinber of 

Negroes served in World War II, their employment was limited in opportunity 

and expensive for the service. 

The Need for Change 

If segregation weakened the Army's organization for global war, it had even 

more serious effects on every tenth soldier, for as it deepened the Negro's sense 

of inferiority it devastated his morale. It was a major cause of the poor performance and the disciplinary problems that plagued so many black units. And it 

made black soldiers blame their personal difficulties and misfortunes, many the 

common lot of any soldier, on racial discrimination.

42 

Deteriorating morale in black units and pressure from a critical audience of 

articulate Negroes and their sympathizers led the War Department to focus 

special attention on its race problem. Early in the war Secretary Stimson had 

agreed with a General Staff recommendation that a permanent committee be 

formed to evaluate racial incidents, propose special reforms, and answer questions involving the training and assignment of Negroes.43 On 27 August 1942 

he established the Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies, with Assistant 

4owar Department Pamphlet 20-6, Command of Negro Troops, 29 February 1944. 41 Army Service Forces Manual M-5, Leadership and the Negro Soldier, October 1944, p. iv. 

42Lee, Employment of Negro Troops, p. 84; for a full discussion of morale, see ch. XI. See also David G. 

Mandelbaum, Soldier Groups and Negro Soldiers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 19~2); Charles 

Dollard and Donald Young, "In the Armed Forces," Survey Graphic 36 (January 1947):66££. 

43Memo, G-1 for CofS, 18 Jul 42; OF, G-1 to TAG. 11 Aug 42. Both in AG 334 (Advisory Cmte on 

Negro Trp Policies, 11 Jul42) (1). 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 35 

SERVICE CLUB, FORT HUACHUCA 

Secretary McCloy as chairman. 

44 Caught in the cross fire of black demands and 

Army traditions, the committee contented itself at first with collecting information on the racial situation and acting as a clearinghouse for recommendations 

on the employment of black troops. 4

) 

Serious racial trouble was developing by the end of the first year of the war. 

The trouble was a product of many factors, including the psychological effects of 

segregation which may not have been so obvious to the committee or even to the 

black soldier. Other factors, however, were visible to all and begged for remedial 

action. For example, the practice of using racia.lly separated facilities on military 

posts, which was not sanctioned in the Army's basic plan for black troops, took 

hold early in the war. Many black units were located at camps in the south, 

where commanders insisted on applying local laws and customs inside the 

44The committee included the Assistant Chiefs of Staff, G-1, of the War Department General Staff, the 

Air Staff, and the Army Ground Forces; the Director of Personnel, Army Service Forces; General Davis. 

representing The Inspector General, and an acting secretary. The Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War was not 

a member, although Judge Hastie's successor was made an ex officio member in March 1943. See Min of Mtg 

of Advisory Cmte, Col ]. S. Leonard. 22 Mar 43, ASW 291.2 NTC. 4

)See, for example, Memo, Recorder, Cmte on Negro Troop Policies (Col John H. McCormick), for CofS. 

sub: Negro Troops, WDCSA 291.2 (12-24- 42). 
36 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940- 1965 

military reservations. This practice spread rapidly, and soon in widely separated 

sections of the country commanders were separating the races in theaters, post 

exchanges, service clubs, and buses operating on posts. The accommodations 

provided Negroes were separate but rarely equal, and substandard recreational 

and housing facilities assigned to black troops were a constant source of irritation. In fact the Army, through the actions of local commanders, actually 

introduced Jim Crow in some places at home and abroad. Negroes considered 

such practices in violation of military regulations and inconsistent with the 

announced principles for which the United States was fighting. Many believed 

themselves the victims of the personal prejudices of the local commander. Judge 

Hastie reported their feelings: ''The traditional mores of the South have been 

widely accepted and adopted by the Army as the basis of policy and practice affecting the Negro soldier ... . In tactical organization, in physical location, in 

human contacts, the Negro soldier is separated from the white soldier as completely as possible.' '

46 

In November 1941 another controversy erupted over the discovery that the 

Red Cross had established racially segregated blood banks. The Red Cross 

readily admitted that it had no scientific justification for the racial separation of 

blood and blamed the armed services for the decision. Despite the evidence of 

science and at risk of demoralizing the black community, the Army's Surgeon 

General defended the controversial practice as necessary to insure the acceptance 

of a potentially unpopular program. Ignoring constant criticism from the 

NAACP and elements of the black press, the armed forces continued to demand 

segregated blood banks throughout the war. Negroes appreciated the irony of 

the situation, for they were well aware that a black doctor, Charles R. Drew, had 

been a pioneer researcher in the plasma extraction process and had directed the 

first Red Cross blood bank.47 

Black morale suffered further in the leadership crisis that developed in black 

units early in the war. The logic of segregated units demanded a black officer 

corps, but there were never enough black officers to command all the black 

units. In 1942 only 0.35 percent of the Negroes in the Army were officers, a 

shortcoming that could not be explained by poor education alone.48 But when 

the number of black officers did begin to increase, obstacles to their employment appeared: some white commanders, assuming that Negroes did not 

46Mcmo, Hastic for SW, 22 Sep 41, sub: Survey and Recommendations Concerning the Integration of the 

Negro Soldier Into the Army, G- 1/15640- 120. 

0n 16 January 1942 the Navy an.nounced that "in deference to the wishes of those for whom the plasma 

is being provided, the blood will be processed separately sb that those receiving transfusions may be given 

blood of their own race.' ' Three days later the Chief of the Bureau of Medicine, who was also th President's 

personal physician, told rhe Secretary of the Navy, "It is my opinion that at this time we cannot a•· nd to open 

up a subject such as mixing blood or plasma regardless of the theoretical fact that there is no .ernical difference in human blood." Sec Memo, Rear Adm Ross T. Mcintire for SccNav, 19 Jan 42, GenRecsNav. See 

also Florence Murray, cd., Negro Handbook, 1946-1947 (New York: A. A. Wyn, 1948), pp. 373-74. For effect of segregated blood banks on black morale, see Mary A. Morton, "The Federal Government and Negro 

Morale," ]oumal of Negro Education (Summer 1943): 452, 455- 56. 48Eli Ginzberg. The Negro Pote11tial (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956), p. 85. Ginzbcrg 

points out that only about one our of ten black soldiers in the upper two mental categories became an officer, 

compared ro one out of four white sol diets. 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 37 

possess leadership ability and that black troops preferred white officers, 

demanded white officers for their units. Limited segregated recreational and living facilities for black officers prevented their assignment to some bases, while 

the active opposition of civilian communities forced the Army to exclude them 

from others. The Army staff practice of forbidding Negroes to outrank or command white officers serving in the same unit not only limited the employment 

and restricted the rank of black officers but also created invidious distinctions 

between white and black officers in the same unit. It tended to convince enlisted 

men that their .black leaders were not full-fledged officers. Thus restricted in 

assignment and segregated socially and professionally, his ability and status in 

question, the black officer was often an object of scorn to himself and to his 

men. 

The attitude and caliber of white officers assigned to black units hardly compensated for the lack of black officers. In general, white oHicers resented their 

assignment to black units and were quick to seek transfer. Worse still, black 

units, where sensitive and patient leaders were needed to create an effective 

military force, often became, as they had in earlier wars, dumping grounds for 

officers unwanted in white units. 49 The Army staff further aggravated black sensibilities by showing a preference for officers of southern birth and training, 

believing them to be generally more competent to exercise command over 

Negroes. In reality many Negroes, especially those from the urban centers, particularly resented southern officers. At best these officers appeared paternalistic, 

and Negroes disliked being treated as a separate and distinct group that needed 

special handling and protection. As General Davis later circumspect! y reported, 

"many colored people of today expect only a certain line of treatment from 

white officers born and reared in the South, namely, that which follows the 

southern pattern, which is most distasteful to them. ")0 

Some of these humiliations might ha~e been less demeaning had the black 

soldier been convinced that he was a full partner in the crusade against fascism. 

As news of the conversion of black units from combat to service duties and the 

word that no new black combat units were being organized became a matter of 

public knowledge, the black press asked: Will any black combat units be left? 

Will any of those left be allowed to fight? In fact, would black units ever get 

overseas? 

Actually, the Army had a clear-cut plan for the overseas employment of both 

black service and combat units. In May 1942 the War Department directed the 

Army Air Forces, Ground Forces, and Service Forces to make sure that black 

troops were ordered overseas in numbers not less than their percentage in each 

of these commands. Theater commanders would be informed of orders moving 

black troops to their commands, but they would not be asked to agree to their 

shipment beforehand. Since troop shipments to the British Isles were the chief 

49Mcmo, DCofS to CG. AAF. 10 Aug 42. sub: Professional Qualities of Officers Assigned to Negro Units, 

WDGAP 322.99; Memo. CG, VII Corps, co CG, AGF. 28 Aug 42. same sub. GNAGS 210.31. 

S0Brig Gcn B. 0. Davis. "History of a Special Section Office of the Inspector General (29 June 1941 to 16 

November 19if4)," p . 8, in CMH. 
38 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

concern at that time, the order added that "there will be no positive restrictions 

on the use of colored troops in the British Isles, but shipment of colored units to 

the British Isles will be limited, initially, to those in the service categories.'' 51 

The problem here was not the Army's policy but the fact that certain foreign 

governments and even some commanders in American territories wanted to exclude Negroes. Some countries objected to black soldiers because they feared 

race riots and miscegenation. Others with large black populations of their own 

felt that black soldiers with their higher rates of pay might create unrest. Still 

other countri'es had national exclusion laws. In the case of Alaska and Trinidad, 

Secretary Stimson ordered, "Don't yield." Speaking of Iceland, Greenland, 

and Labrador, he commented, "Pretty cold for blacks." To the request of 

Panamanian officials that a black signal construction unit be withdrawn from 

their country he replied, "Tell them [the black unit] they must complete their 

work-it is ridiculous to raise such objections when the Panama. Canal itself was 

built with black labor." As for Chile and Venezuela's exclusion of Negroes he 

ruled that "As we are the petitioners here we probably must comply. " 52 Stimson's rulings led to a new War Department policy: henceforth black soldiers 

would be assigned without regard to color except that they would not be sent to 

extreme northern areas or to any country against its will when the United States 

had requested the right to station troops in that country. 

53 

Ultimately, theater commanders decided which troops would be committed 

to action and which units would be needed overseas; their decisions were usually 

respected by the War Department where few believed that Washington should 

dictate such matters. Unwilliing to add racial problems to their administrative 

burdens, some commanders had been known to cancel their request for troops 

rather than accept black units. Consequently, very few Negroes were sent 

overseas in the early years of the war. 

Black soldiers were often the victims of gross discrimination that transcended 

their difficulties with the Army's administration. For instance, black soldiers, 

particularly those from more integrated regions of the country, resented local ordinances governing transportation and recreation facilities that put them at a 

great disadvantage in the important matters of leave and amusement. Infractions of local rules were inevitable and led to heightened racial tension and 

recurring violence. 54 At times black soldiers themselves, reflecting the low 

morale and lack of discipline in their units, instigated the violence. Whoever the 

culprits, the Army's files are replete with cases of discrimination charged, investigations launched, and exonerations issued or reforms ordered. 55 An incredible amount of time and effort went into handling these cases during the darkest 

51Ltr, TAG to CG, AAF, et al. , 13 May 42. AG 291.21 (3-31-42). 52Stimson's comments were not limited to overseas areas. To a request by the Second Army commander 

that Negroes be excluded from maneuvers in certain areas of the American south he replied: "No, get the 

Southerners used to them!" Memo, ACofS, WPD, for CofS, 25 Mar 42, sub: The Colored Troop Problem, 

OPD 291.2. Stimson's comments arc written marginally in ink and initialed "H.L.S." 

BMemo, G-1 for TAG, 4 Apr 42, and Revised Proposals, 22 Apr and 30 Apr42. All in G-1115640-2. 

54 Memo, Civilian Aide to SW, 17 Nov 42, ASW 291.2 NT. 

55See, for example, AAF Central Decimal Files for October 1942-May 1944 (RG 18). For an extended 

discussion of this subject, see Lee, Employment of Negro Troops, ch. XI-XIII. 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 39 

days of the war- cases growing out of a policy created in the name of military 

efficiency. 

Nor was the violence limited to the United States. Racial friction also 

developed in Great Britain where some American troops, resenciGg their black 

countrymen's social acceptance by the British, cried to export Jim Crow by forcing the segregation of recreational facilities. Appreciating the treatment they 

were receiving from the British, the black soldiers fought back, and the clashes 

grew at times to riot proportions. General Davis considered discrimination and 

prejudice the cause of trouble, but he placed the immediate blame on local 

commanders. Many commanders, convinced that they had little jurisdiction 

over racial disputes in the civilian community or simply refusing co accept 

responsibility, delegated the task of keeping order to their noncommissioned officers and military police. )

6 These men, rarely experienced in handling racial 

disturbances and often prejudiced against black soldiers, usually managed to exacerbate the situation. 

In an atmosphere charged with rumors and counterrumors, personal incidents involving two men might quickly blow up into riots involving hundreds. 

In the summer of 1943 che Army began to reap what Ulysees Lee called the 

"harvest of disorder." Race riots occurred at military reservations in Mississippi, 

Georgia, California, Texas, and Kentucky. At other stations, the Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies somberly warned, there were indications of 

unrest ready to erupt into violence. H By the middle of the war, violence over 

racial issues at home and abroad had become a source of constant concern for the 

War Department. 

Internal Reform: Amending Racial Practices 

Concern over troop morak and discipline and the attendant problem of 

racial violence did not lead to a substantial revision of the Army's racial policy. 

On the contrary, the Army staff continued to insist that segregation was a national issue and that the Army's task was to defend che country, not alter its 

social customs. Until the nation changed its racial practices or until Congress 

ordered such changes for the armed forces, racially separated units would remain.)8 In 1941 the Army had insisted that debate on the subject was closed,)9 

and, in fact, except for discussion of the Chamberlain Plan there was no serious 

thought of revising racial policy in the Army staff until after the war. 

Had the debate been reopened in 1943, the traditionalists on the Army scaff 

would have found new support for their views in a series of surveys made of 

white and black soldiers in 1942 and 1943. These surveys supported the theory 

)

6Mcmo, Brig Gcn B. 0. Davis for the IG. 24 Dec 42, IG 333.9-Grcat Britain. 

HMemo, ASW for CofS, 3 Jul 43. sub: Negro Troops, ASW 291.2 NT. The Judge Advocate General 

described disturbances of this type as military ''mutiny.'' Sec The Judge Advocate General. M1'li1ary Juslice, I 

July 1940 to 31 December 194.5. p. 60, in CMH. 

) 8Lec, Employment of Negro Troops, p. 83. 

)9Ltr, TAG to Dr. Amanda V. G. Hillyer, Chmn Program Cmte, D.C. Branch, NAACP, 12 Apr 41, AG 

291.21 (2-28-41) (1). 
40 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

that the Army, a national institution composed of individual citizens with pronounced views on race, would meet massive disobedience and internal disorder 

as well as natio'nal resistance to any substantial change in policy. One extensive 

survey, covering 13,000 soldiers in ninety-two units, revealed that 88 percent of 

the whites and 38 percent of the Negroes preferred segregated units. Among the 

whites, 85 percent preferred separate service clubs and 81 percent preferred 

separate post exchanges. Almost half of the Negroes thought separate service 

clubs and post exchanges were a good idea. 60 These attitudes merely reflected 

widely held national views as suggested in a 1943 survey of five key cities by the 

Office of War Information.61 The survey showed that 90 percent of the whites 

and 25 percent of the blacks questioned supported segregation. 

Some Army officials considered justification by statistics alone a risky 

business. Reviewing the support for segregation revealed in the surveys, for example, the Special Services Division commented: ''Many of the Negroes and 

some of the whites who favor separation in the Army indicate by their comments 

that they are opposed to segregation in principle. They favor separation in the 

Army to avoid trouble or unpleasantness.'' Its report added that the longer a 

Negro remained in the Army, the less likely he was to support segregation.62 

Nor did it follow from the overwhelming support for segregation that a policy of 

integration would result in massive resistance. As critics later pointed out, the 

same surveys revealed that almost half the respondents expressed a strong 

preference for civilian life, but the Army did not infer that serious disorders 

would result if these men were forced to remain in uniform. 63 

By 1943 Negroes within and without the War Department had just about 

exhausted arguments for a policy change. After cwo years of trying, Judge Hastie 

came to believe that change was possible only in response to "strong and 

manifest public opinion.'' He concluded chat he would be far more useful as a 

private citizen who could express his views freely and publicly than he was as a 

War Department employee, bound to conform co official policy. Quitting the 

department, Hastie joined the increasingly vocal black organizations in a sustained attack on the Army's segregation policy, an attack that was also being 

translated into political action by the major civil rights organizations. In 1943, a 

full year before the national elections, representatives of twenty-five civil rights 

60Research Branch, Special Service Division, "What the Soldier Thinks," 8 December 1942, and "At· 

titudcs of the Negro Soldier." 28 July 1943. Both cited in lee. Employment of Negro Troops, pp. 304-06. 

for detailed analysis, sec Samuel A. Stouffer ct al. , Studies itl Social Psychology in World War 1/, vol. I, The 

Amerkan Soldier: Adjustment Duri11g A.rmy L1je (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949). pp. 556-80. 

For a more personal view of black experiences in World War II service clubs, sec Margaret Halsey's Color 

Blit1d: A l/Yhite l/Yoman Looks at the Negro (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946). For a comprehensive ex· 

pression of the attitudes of black soldiers, sec Mary P. Motley, cd .. The Invisible Soldier: The Experience of 

the Black Soldier, World War II (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1975), a compilation of oral histories 

by World War II veterans. Although these interviews were conducted a quarter of a century after the event and 

in the wake of the modem civil rights movement, they provide useful insight to the attitude of black soldiers 

toward discrimination in the services. 61 0ffice of War Information, The Negroes' Role in the War: A Study of White and Colored Opinions 

(Memorandum 59. Surveys Division, Bureau of Special Services), 8 Jul43. in CMH. 

62Special Services Division. "Whatthe Soldier Thinks," Number 2, August 1943. pp. 58-59, SSD 291.2. 63Dollard and Young, ''In the Armed Forces, ' ' p. 68. 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 41 

groups met and formulated the demands they would make of the presidential 

candidates: full integration (some groups tempered this demand by calling for 

integrated units of volunteers); abolition of racial quotas; abolition of segregation in recreational and other Army facilities; abolition of blood plasma segregation; development of an educational program in race relations in the Army; 

greater black participation in combat forces; and the progressive removal of 

black troops from areas where they were subject to disrespect, abuse, and even 

violence. 

64 

The Army could not afford. to ignore these demands completely, as Truman 

K. Gibson, Jr., Judge Hastie's successor, pointed out.65 The political situation 

indicated that the racial policy of the armed forces would be an issue in the next 

national election. Recalling the changes forced on the Army as a result of 

political pressures applied before the 1940 election, Gibson predicted that actions that might now seem impolitic to the Army and the White House might 

not seem so during the next campaign when the black vote could influence the 

outcome in several important states, including New York, Pennsylvania, 

Illinois, and Michigan. Already the Chicago Tribune and other antiadministration groups were trying to encourage black protest in terms not always 

accurate but nonetheless believable to the black voter. Gibson sug~ested that 

the Army act before the political pressure became even more intense. 6 

Caught between the black demands and War Department traditions, the 

Advisory Committee on Neg.ro Troop Policies launched an attack- much too 

late and too weak, its critics agreed-on what it perceived as the causes of the 

Army's racial disorders. Some of the credit for this attack must go to Truman 

Gibson. No less dedicated to abolition of racial segregation than Hastie, Gibson 

eschewed the grand gesture and emphasized those practical changes that could 

be effected one step at a time. For all his zeal, Gibson was admirably 

detached.67 He knew that his willingness to recognize that years of oppression 

and injustice had marred the black soldier's performance would earn for him the 

scorn of many civil rights activists, but he also know that his fairness made him 

an effective advocate in the War Department. He worked closely with McCloy's 

committee, always describing with his alternatives for action their probable effect upon the Army, the public, and the developing military situation. As a 

result of the close cooperation between the Advisory Committee and Gibson, 

the Army for the first time began to agree on practical if not policy changes. 

The Advisory Committee's first campaign was directed at local commanders. 

After a long review of the evidence, the committee was convinced that the major 

cause of racial disorder was the failure of commanders in some echelons to appreciate the seriousness of racial unrest and their own responsibility for dealing 

64Ncw York Titnes, December 2, 194 3. 

6)Gibson, a lawyer and a graduate of the University of Chicago, became Judge Hastie's assistant in 1940. 

After Hastie's resignation on 29 January 1943, Gibson served as acting civilian aide and assumed the position 

permanently on 21 September 1943. See Memo, ASW for Admin Asst (John W. Martyn), 21 Sep 43. ASW 

291.2 NT·Civ Aide. 

66Memo, Gibson to ASW, 3 Nov 43. ASW 291.2 NT. See also New York Times, December 2, 1943. 67For discussion of Gibson's attitude and judgments, see lnterv. author with Evans. 3 Jun 73. 
42 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940- 1965 

with the discipline, morale, and welfare of their men. Since it found that most 

disturbances began with real or fancied incidents of discrimination, the committee concluded that there should be no discrimination against Negrot:s in the 

matter of privileges and accommodations and none in favor of Negroes that 

compromised disciplinary standards. The committee wanted local commanders 

to be reminded that maintaining proper discipline and good order among 

soldiers, and between soldiers and civilians, was a definite command responsibility. 68 

General Marshall incorporated the committee's recommendations in a letter 

to the field. He concluded by saying that' 'failure on the part of any commander 

to concern himself personally and vigorously with this problem will be considered as evidence of lack of capacity and cause for reclassification and removal 

from assignment.' '

69 At the same time, the Chief of Staff did not adopt several 

of the committee's specific recommendations. He did not require local commanders to recommend changes in War Department policy on the treatment of 

Negroes and the organization and employment of black units. Nor did he require them to report on steps taken by them to follow the committee's recommendations. Moreover, he did not order the dispatch of black combat units to 

active theaters although the committee had pointed to this course as "the most 

effective means of reducing tension among Negro troops. '' 

Next, the Advisory Committee turned its attention to the black press. Judge 

Hastie and the representatives of the senior civil rights organizations were 

judicious in their criticism and accurate in their charges, but this statement 

could not be made for much of the black press. Along with deserving credit for 

spotlighting racial injustices and giving a very real impetus to racial progress, a 

segment of the black press had to share the blame for fomenting racial disorder 

by the frequent publication of inaccurate and inflammatory war stories. Some 

field commanders charged that the constant criticism was detrimental to troop 

morale and demanded that the War Department investigate and even censor 

particular black newspapers. In July 1943 the Army Service Forces recommended 

that General Marshall officially warn the editors against printing inciting and 

untrue stories and suggested that if this caution failed sedition proceedings be 

instituted against the culprits. 70 General Marshall followed a more moderate 

course suggested by Assistant Secretary McCloy. 71 The Army staff amplified and 

improved the services of the Bureau of Public Relations by appointing Negroes 

to the bureau and by releasing more news items of special interest to black journalists. The result was a considerable increase in constructive and accurate stories 

68Memo, Chmn. Advisory Cmte, for CofS. 3 Jul43. sub: Negro Troops, ASW 291.2 NT. This w~s not scm 

until 6 July. 6

9Memo, CofS for CG. AAF, et al., 13 Jul43. sub: Negro Troops. WDCSA 291.21. 

70Mcmo, Advisory Cnuc for CofS, 16 Mar 43, sub: Inflammatory Publications, ASW 291.2 NT Cmte; 

Memo, CG, 4th Service Cmd, ASF, to CG, ASP. 12 Jul43, sub: Disturbances Among Negro Troops, with at· 

tached note initialed by Gen Marshall, WDCSA 291.2 (12 Jul43). 71Memo, }. ]. McC (John J. McCloy) for Gen Marshall, 21 Jul 43, with auached note signed "GCM," 

ASW 291.2 NT. 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 43 

on black participation in the war, although articles and editorials continued to 

be severely critical of the Army's segregation policy. 

The proposal to send black units into combat, rejected by Marshall when 

raised by the Advisory Committee in 1943, became the preeminent racial issue 

in the Army during the next year. 72 It was vitally necessary, the Advisory Committee reasoned, that black troops not be wasted by leaving them to train 

endlessly in camps around the country, and that the War Department begin 

making them a "military asset." In March 1944 it recommended to Secretary 

Stimson that black units be innoduced into combat and that units and training 

schedules be reorganized if necessary to insure that this deployment be carried 

out as promptly as possible. Elaborating on the committee's recommendation, 

Chairman McCloy added: 

There has been a tendency to allow the situation to develop where selections are 

made on the basis of efficiency with the result that the colored units are discarded for 

combat service, but little is done by way of studying new means to put them in shape for 

combat service. 

With so large a portion of our population colored, with the example of the effective 

use of colored troops (of a much lower order of intelligence) by other nations, and with 

the many imponderables that are connected with the situation, we must, I think, bt: 

more affirmative about the use of our Negro troops. If present methods do not bring 

them to combat efficiency, we should change those methods. That is what this resolution purports to recommend .73 

Stimson agreed, and on 4 March 1944 the Advisory Committee met with 

members of the Army staff to decide on combat assignments for regimental 

combat teams from the 92d and 93d Divisions. In order that both handpicked 

soldiers and normal units might be tested, the team from the 93d would come 

from existing units of that division, and the one from the 92d would be a 

specially selected group of volunteers. General Marshall and his associates continued to view the commitment of black combat troops as an experiment that 

might provide documentation for the future employment of Negroes in combat. 74 In keeping with this experiment, the Army staff suggested to field commanders how Negroes might be employed and requested continuing repoccs on 

the units' progress. 

The belated introduction of major black units into combat helped alleviate 

the Army's racial problems. After elements of the 93d Division were committed on Bougainville in March 1944 and an advanced group of the 92d landed in 

Italy in July, the Army staff found it easier to ship smaller supporting units to 

combat theaters, either as separate units or as support for larger units, a course 

that reduced the glut of black soldiers stationed in the United States. Recognizing that many of these units had poor leaders, Lt. Gen. Lesley]. McNair, head 

of the Army Ground Forces, ordered that, "if practicable," all leaders of black 

12M in of Mtg of Advisory Cmte on Negro Troop Policies, 29 Feb 44 , ASW 291 .2 Negro Troops Cmre; Lee, 

Employment of Negro Troops, pp. 449-50. 

73Memo, ASW for SW, 2 Mar44, inclosing formal recommendations, WDCSA 291.2/13 Negroes (1944). 

'

4

Pogue, Organizer of Victory, p. 99. 
44 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

930 DIVISION TROOPS IN BOUGAINVILLE. APRIL 1944. Men, packing mortar 

shells, cross the West Branch Texas River. 

units who had not received "excellent" or higher in their efficiency ratings 

would be replaced before the units were scheduled for overseas deployment. 75 

Given the "if practicable" loophole, there was little chance that all the units 

would go overseas with' 'excellent'' commanders. 

A source of pride to the black community, the troop commitments also 

helped to reduce national racial tensions, but they did little for the average 

black soldier who remained stationed in the United States. He continued to suffer discrimination within and without the gates of the camp. The committee attributed that discrimination to the fact that War Department policy was not being carried out in all commands. In some instances local commanders were 

unaware of the policy; in others they refused to pay sufficient attention to the 

seriousness of what was, after all, but one of many problems facing them. For 

some time committee members had been urging the War Department to write 

special instructions, and finally in February 1944 the department issued a pamphlet designed to acquaint local commanders with an official definition of Army 

racial policy and to improve methods of developing leaders in black units. 

7)Memo, CG, AGF, for CG's, Second Army, et al., n.d., sub: Efficiency Ratings of Commanders of Negro 

Units Scheduled for Overseas Shipment, GNGAP-L 201 .61/9. 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 45 

Command of Negro Troops was a landmark publication. 76 Its frank statement of 

the Army's racial problems, its scholarly and objective discussion of the disadvantages that burdened the black soldier, and its outline of black rights and 

responsibilities clearly revealed the committee's intention to foster racial harmony by promoting greater command responsibility. The pamphlet represented 

a major departure from previous practice and served as a model for later Army 

and Navy statements on race. 77 

But pamphlets alone would not put an end to racial discrimination; the 

committee had to go beyond its role of instructor. Although the War Department had issued a directive on 10 March 1943 forbidding the assignment of any 

recreational facility, "including theaters and post exchanges," by race and requiring the removal of signs labeling facilities for "white" and "colored" 

soldiers, there had been little alteration in the recreational situation. The directive had allowed the separate use of existing facilities by designated units and 

camp areas, so that in many places segregation by unit had replaced separation 

by race, and inspectors and commanders reported that considerable confusion 

existed over the War Department's intentions. On other posts the order ro 

remove the racial labels from facilities was simply disregarded. On 8 July 1944 

the committee persuaded the War Department to issue another directive dearly 

informing commanders that facilities could be allocated to specific areas or 

units, but that all post exchanges and theaters must be opened to all soldiers 

regardless of race. All government transportation, moreover, was to be available 

to all troops regardless of race. Nor could soldiers be restricted to certain sections 

of government vehicles on or off base, regardless of local customs. 78 

Little dramatic change ensued in day-to-day life on base. Some commanders, emphasizing that pare of the directive which allowed the designation 

of facil ities for units and areas, limited the degree of the directive's application 

to post exchanges and theaters and ignored those provisions concerned with individual rights. This interpretation only added to the racial unrest that 

culminated in several incidents, of which the one at the officers' club at 

Freeman Field, Indiana, was the most widely publicized. 79 After this incident 

the committee promptly asked for a revision of WD Pamphlet 20-6 on the command of black troops that would clearly spell out the intention of the authors of 

the directive to apply its integration provisions explicitly to ''officers' clubs, 

messes, or similar social organizations. " 80 In effect the War Department was 

declaring tha~ racial separation applied to units only. For the first time it made a 

7

6WD PAM 20-6, Conmtand of Negro Troops, 29 Feb 44. 77The Army Service Forces published a major supplement to War Department Pamphlet 20-6 in October 

1944, sec Army Service forces Manual M-5, Leadership and the Negro Soldier. 78Ltr, TAG to CG, AAF, et al., 8 Ju144. sub: Recreational Facilities, AG 353.8 (5 Jul44) OB·S·A·M. 

79 Actually, the use of officers' clubs by black troops was clearly implied if not ordained in paragraph 19 of 

Army Regulation 210-10. 20 December 1940, which stated that any club operating on federal property must 

be open to all officers assigned to the post. camp, or station. For more on the Freeman Field incident, sec 

Chapter 5. below. 

80Mcmo, Sccy, Advisory Cmte, for Advisory Cmte on Special Troop Policies, 13 Jun 45, sub: Minutes of 

Meeting. ASW 291.2 NT. 
46 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940- 1965 

clear distinction between Army race policy to be applied on federal military 

reservations and local civilian laws and customs to be observed by members of 

the armed forces when off post. In Acting Secretary Patterson's words: 

The War Department has maintained throughout the emergency and present war that it 

is not an appropriate medium for effecting social readjustments but has insisted that all 

soldiers, regardless of race, be afforded equal opportunity to enjoy the recreational 

facilities which are provided at posts, camps and stations. The thought has been that 

men who are fulfilling the same obligation, suffering the same dislocation of their 

private lives, and wearing the identical uniform should , within the confines of the 

military establishment, have the same privileges for rest and relaxation.81 

Widely disseminated by the black press as the "anti-Jim Crow law," the 

directive and its interpretation by senior officials produced the desired result. 

Although soldiers most often continued to frequent the facilities in their own 

base areas, in effect maintaining racial separation, they were free to use any 

facilities, and this knowledge gradually dispelled some of the tensions on posts 

where restrictions of movement had been a constant threat to good order. 

With some pride, Assistant Secretary McCloy claimed on his Advisory Committee's first birthday that the Army had "largely eliminated discrimination 

against the Negroes within its ranks, going further in this direction than the 

country itself. " 82 He was a little premature. Not until the end of 1944 did the 

Advisory Committee succeed in eliminating the most glaring examples of 

discrimination within the Army. Even then race remained an issue, and isolated 

racial incidents continued to occur. 

Two Exceptions 

Departmental policy notwithstanding, a certain amount of racial integration 

was inevitable during a war that mobilized a biracial army of eight million men. 

Through administrative error or necessity, segregation was ignored on many occasions, and black and white soldiers often worked and lived together in 

hospitals, 83 rest camps. schools, and, more rarely, units. But these were isolated 

cases, touching relatively few men, and they had no discernible effect on racial 

policy. Of much more importance was the deliberate integration in officer training schools and in the divisions fighting in the European theater in 1945. McCloy referred to these deviations from policy as experiments ''too limited to afford general conclusions. " 84 But if they set no precedents, they at least challenged the Army's cherished assumptions on segregation and strengthened the 

postwar demands for change. 

The Army integrated its officer candidate training in an effort to avoid the 

mistakes of the World War I program. In 1917 Secretary of War Newton D. 

8 1

Ltr. Actg SW to Gov. Chauncey Sparks of Alabama, I Sep 44, WDCSA 291.2 (26 Aug 44). 82Ltr, ASW to Herbert B. Elliscon, Editor, Washington Post, 5 Aug 43, ASW 291.2 NT (Gcn). 83Ltr, USW co Roane Waring, NMional Cmdr, American Legion, 5 May 43, SW 291.2 NT. Integrated 

hospitals did not appear until 1943. See Robert}. Parks, "The Development of Segregation in U.S. Army 

Hosr,itals, 1940-1942, " Miltiary Affairs 37 (December 1973): 145-50. 

4Ltr, ASW to SecNav, 22 Aug 45, ASW 291.2 NT (Gen). 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 

GUN CREW OF BKJ1"ERY B, 59 8th FICLD ARTILLERY, moving into position near the 

Amo River, Italy, September 1944. 

47 

Baker had established a separate training school for black officer candidates at 

Fort Des Moines, Iowa, with disappointing results. To fill its quotas the school 

had been forced to lower its entrance standards, and each month an arbitrary 

number of black officer candidates were selected and graduated with little 

regard for their qualifications. Many World War I commanders agreed that the 

black officers produced by the school proved inadequate as troop commanders, 

and postwar staff studies generally opposed the future use of black officers. 

Should the Army be forced to accept black officers in the future, these commanders generally agreed, they should be trained along with whites.8) 

Despite these criticisms, mobilization plans between the wars all assumed 

that black officers would be trained and commissioned, although, as the 1937 

mobilization plan put it, their numbers would be limited to those re~uired to 

provide officers for organizations authorized to have black officers. 8 No detailed plans were drawn up on the nature of this training, but by the eve of 

World War II a policy had become fixed: Negroes were to be chosen and trained 

according to the same standards as white officers, preferably in the same 

S)Ltr. William Hastic to Lee Nichols, I 5 Jul 53. in Nichols Collection, CMH; sec also Lee, Employme11t of 

Negro TroopJ, pp. 15- 20; Army War College Mise File 127- 1 through 127- 22, AMHRC. 

86As published in Mobilization Regulation 1- 2 (1938 and May 1939 versions), par. I td, and 15 Jul39 ver· 

sion, par. J3b. 
48 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

TANKERS OF THE 761ST MEDIUM TANK BATTALION prepare for action in the European theater, August 1944. 

schools. 87 The War Department ignored the subject of race when it established 

the officer candidate schools in 1941. "The basic and predominating consideration governing selections to OCS," The Adjutant General announced, would 

be ''outstanding qualities of leadership as demonstrated by actual services in the 

Army ." 88 General Davis, who participated in the planning conferences, reasoned that integrated training would be vital for the cooperation that would be 

necessary in battle. He agreed with the War Department's silence on race, adding, "you can't have Negro, white, or Jewish officers, you've got to have 

American officers. '' 89 

The Army's policy failed to consider one practical problem: if race was ignored in War Department directives, would black candidates ever be nominated 

and selected for officer training? Early enrollment figures suggested they would 

not. Between July 1941 , when the schools opened, and October 1941, only 

seventeen out of the 1,997 students enrolled in candidate schools were Negroes. 

Only six more Negroes entered during the next two months.9° 

87Lec, Employment of Negro Troops. p. 50. 88TAG Ltr, 26 Apr41, AG 352 (4- 10- 41) M-M-C. 

89Davis, "History of a Special Section Office of rhc Inspector General." 

90Eicven of these were candidates at the Infantry School, 2 at the Field Artillery School, 7 at the Quartermaster School, and I each at the Cavalry, Ordnance, and Finance Schools. Memo, TAG for Admin Asst. 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 49 

Some civil rights spokesmen argued for the establishment of a quota system, 

and a few Negroes even asked for a return to segregated schools to insure a more 

plentiful supply qf black officers. Even before the schools opened, Judge Hastie 

warned Secretary Stimson that any effective integration plan "required a directive to Corps Area Commanders indicating that Negroes are to be selected in 

numbers exactly or approximately indicated for particular schools.' '

91 But the 

planners had recommended the integrated schools precisely to avoid a quota 

system. They were haunted by the Army's 1917 experience, although the chief 

of the Army staff's Organizations Division did not allude to these misgivings 

when he answered Judge Hastie. He argued that a quota could not be defended 

on any grounds "except those of a political nature" and would be "race 

discrimination against the whites.' '

92 

General Marshall agreed that racial parity could not be achieved at the expense of commissioning unqualified men, but he was equally adamant about 

providing equal opportunity for all qualified candidates, black and white. He 

won support for his position from some of the civil rights advocates.93 These 

arguments may not have swayed Hastie, but in the end he dropped the idea of a 

regular quota system, judging it unworkable in the case of the officer candidate 

schools. He concluded that m:any commanders approached the selection of officer candidates with a bias against the Negro, and he recommended that a 

directive or confidential memorandum be sent to commanders charged with the 

selection of officer candidates informing them that a certain minimum percentage of black candidates was to be chosen. Hastie's recommendation was ignored, but the widespread refusal of local commanders to approve or transmit 

applications of Negroes, or even to give them access to appropriate forms, halted 

when Secretary Stimson and the Army staff made it plain that they expected 

substantial numbers of Negroes to be sent to the schools.94 

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People meanwhile moved quickly to prove that the demand for a return to segregated 

schools, made by Edgar G. Brown, president of the United States Government 

Employees, and broadcaster Fulton Lewis, Jr., enjoyed little backing in the black 

community. "We respectfully submit," Walter White informed Stimson and 

Roosevelt, "that no leader considered responsible by intelligent Negro or white 

Americans would make such a request.' '

95 In support of .its stand the NAACP 

issued a statement signed by many influential black leaders. 

OSW, 16 Scp 4 1, sub: Request of the Civ Aide to the SW for Data Relative to Negro Soldiers, AG 291.21 

(9.:...12-41) M; Memo, TAG for Civ Aide tO SW, 18 Nov 41, sub: Request for Data Relative to Negro Soldiers 

Admitted to OCS. AG 291.21 (I0-30-41) RB. 91Ltr, Hastic to SW, 8 May 41, ASW 291.2 NT. 

92Memo, ACofS, G-3. for CofS. 12 May 41, sub: Negro Officers; Memo, ACofS. G-3. for ACofS. G-1 

(A'ITN: Col Wharton). 12 Jun 41, same sub. Both in WDGOT 291.2 . 

93poguc. Organizer of Victory , p. 96. 

94Mcmo, Hastic for ASW. ~ Scp 4 1, G-1/1%40-120; Ltr. Hastie to Nichols. I~ Jul 3; Tab C to AG 

320.2 (11 -24-42). 

95Tclg. Walter White, NAACP, ro SW and President Roosevelt, 23 Ocr 41, AG 291 .21 (10-23-41) (3); 

Ltr, Edgar W. Brown tO President Roosevelt and SW. I~ Oct 41. AG 291.2 (10-1~-4 1} (1}. Sec also Memo, 

ACofS, G-3. for CofS, 23 Ocr 41, sub: Negro Officer Candidate Schools, G-3/43276. 
50 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

WAAC REPLACEMENTS training at Fort Huachuca, December 1942. 

The segregationists attacked integration of the officer candidate schools for 

the obvious reasons. A group of Florida congressmen, for example, protested to 

the Army against the establishment of an integated Air Corps school at Miami 

Beach. The War Department received numerous complaints when living 

quarters at the schools were integrated. The president of the White Supremacy 

League complained that young white candidates at Fort Benning "have to eat 

and sleep with Negro candidates," calling it "the most damnable outrage chat 

was ever perpetrated on the youth of the South." To all such complaints the 

War Department answered that separation was not always possible because of 

the small number of Negroes involved. 96 

In answering these complaints the Army developed its ultimate justification 

for integrated officer schools: integration was necessary on the grounds of efficiency and economy. As one Army spokesman put it, ''our objection to separate 

96Ltr, Horace Wilkinson to Rep. John J. Sparkman (Alabama), 24 Aug 43; Ltr, TAG to Rep. John Starnes 

(Alabama), 15 Sep 43. Both in AG 095 (Wilkinson) (28 Aug 43). Sec also lnterv, Nichols with Ulysses Lee, 

19)3. 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 51 

schools is based primarily on the fact that black officer candidates are eligible 

from every branch of the Army, including the Armored Force and tank destroyer 

battalions, and it would be decidedly uneconomical to attempt to gather in one 

school the materiel and instructor personnel necessary to give training in all 

these branches.' '

97 

Officer candidate training was the Army's first formal experiment with integration. Many blacks and whites lived together with a minimum of friction, 

and, except in flight school, all candidates trained together.98 Yet in some 

schools the number of black officer candidates made racially separate rooms 

feasible, and Negroes were usually billeted and messed together. In other instances Army organizations were slow to integrate their officer training. The 

Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, for example, segregated black candidates until 

l~tte 1942 when Judge Hastie brought the matter to McCloy's attention.99 Nevertheless, the Army's experiment was far more important than its immediate 

results indicated. It proved that even in the face of considerable opposition the 

Army was willing to abandon its segregation policy when the issues of economy 

and efficiency were made sufficiently clear and compelling. 

The Army's second experiment with integration came in part from the need 

for infantry replacements during the Allied advance across Western Europe in 

the summer and fall of 1944. 100 The Ground Force Replacement Command had 

been for some time converting soldiers from service units to infantry, and even 

as the Germans launched their counterattack in the Ardennes the command was 

drawing up plans to release thousands of soldiers in Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee's 

Communications Zone and train them as infantrymen. These plans left the 

large reservoir of black manpower in the theater untapped until General Lee 

suggested that General Dwight D . Eisenhower permit black service troops to 

volunteer for infantry training and eventual employment as individual 

replacements. General Eisenhower agreed, and on 26 December Lee issued a call 

to the black troops for volunteers to share ''the privilege of joining our veteran 

units at the front to deliver the knockout blow.'' The call was limited to privates 

in the upper four categories of the Army General Classification Test who had 

had some infantry training. If noncommissioned officers wanted to apply, they 

had to accept a reduction in grade. Although patronizing in tone, the plan was a 

bold departure from War Department policy: "It is planned to assign you 

without regard to color or race to the units where assistance is most needed, and 

give you the opportunity of fighting shoulder to shoulder to bring about victory. . . . Your relatives and friends everywhere have been urging that you be 

granted this privilege. " 101 

97Ltr, SGS to Sen. Carl Hayden (Arizona), 12 Dec 41, AG 3}2 (12-12-41). See also Memo, ACofS, G- 3, 

for CofS, 23 Oct 41 , sub: Negro Officer Candidate Schools, G- 3/ 43276. 

98Dollard and Young, "In the Armed Forces." 

99Memos, Hastie for ASW, 4 Nov 42 and 15 Dec 42; Ltr, Maj GenA. D. Bruce, Cmdr, Tank Destroyer 

Center, toASW, 31 Dec 42. All inASW 291.2 NT(12-2-42). 10°For a detailed discussion, see Lee, Entployment of Negro Troops, Chapter XXII. 10 1

Ltr, Lt Gen John C. H. Lee to Commanders of Colored Troops, ComZ, 26 Dec 44, sub: Volunteers for 

Training and Assignmenr as Reinforcements, AG 322X3}3XSGS. 
52 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

The revolutionary nature of General Lee's plan was not lost on Supreme 

Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force. Arguing that the circular promising 

integrated service would embarrass the Army, Lt. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, 

the chief of staff, recommended that General Eisenhower warn the War Department that civil rights spokesmen might seize on this example to demand wider 

integration. To avoid future moves that might compromise Army policy, Smith 

wanted permission to review any Communications Zone statements on Negroes 

before they were released. 

General Eisenhower compromised. Washington was not consulted, and 

Eisenhower himself revised the circular, eliminating the special call for black 

volunteers and the promise of integration on an individual basis. He substituted 

instead a general appeal for volunteers, adding the further qualification that 

"in the event that the number of suitable negro volunteers exceeds the replacement needs of negro combat units, these men will be suitably incorporated in 

other organizations so that their service and their fighting spirit may be efficiently utilized." 102 This statement was disseminated throughout the European 

theater. 

The Eisenhower revision needed considerable clarification. It mentioned the 

replacement needs of black combat units, but there were no black infantry units 

in the theater; 103 and the replacement command was not equipped to retrain 

men for artillery, tank, and tank destroyer units, the types of combat units that 

did employ Negroes in Europe. The revision also called for volunteers in excess 

of these needs to be "suitably incorporated in other organizations," but it did 

not indicate how they would be organized. Eisenhower later made it clear that 

he preferred to organize the volunteers in groups that could replace white units 

in the line, bur again the replacement command was geared to train individual, 

not unit, replacements. After considerable discussion and compromise, 

Eisenhower agreed to have Negroes trained "as members of Infantry rifle platoons familiar with the Infantry rifle platoon weapons.'' The platoons would be 

sent for assignment to Army commanders who would provide them with platoon leaders, plaroon sergeants, and, if needed, squad leaders. 

Unaware of how close they had come to being integrated as individuals, so 

many Negroes volunteered for combat training and duty that the operations of 

some service units were threatened. To prevent disrupting these vital operations, 

the theater limited the number co 2,500, turning down about 3,000 men. Early 

in January 1945 the volunteers assembled for six weeks of standard infantry conversion training. After training, the new black infantrymen were organized into 

fifty-three platoons, each under a white platoon leader and sergeant, and were 

dispatched to the field, two to work with armored divisions and the rest with infantry divisions. Sixteen were shipped to the 6th Army Group, the rest to the 

102Revised version of above, same date. Copies of both versions in CMH. Later General Eisenhower stated 

that he had decided to employ the men "as individuals," but the evidence is clear that he meant plawons in 

1944, sec Ltr. D.D.E. to Gen Bruce C. Clarke, 29 May 63. in CMH. 103Thc 92d Division was assigned to the Mediterranean theater. 
WORLD WAR 11: THE ARMY 

VOLUNTEERS FOR COMBAT IN TRAINING, 47th Reinforcement Depot, February 

1945. 

53 

12th Army Group, and all saw action with a total of eleven divisions in the First 

and Seventh Armies. 

In the First Army the black platoons were usually assigned on the basis of 

three to a division, and the division receiving them normally placed one platoon 

in each regiment. At the company level, the black platoon generally served to 

augment the standard organization of three rifle platoons and one heavy 

weapons platoon. In the Seventh Army, the platoons were organized into provisional companies and attached to infantry battalions in armored divisions. 

General Davis warned the Seventh Army commander, Lt. Gen. Alexander M. 

Patch, that the men had not been trained for employment as company units and 

were not being properly used. The performance of the provisional companies 

failed to match the performance of the platoons integrated into white companies and their morale was lower. 104 At the end of the war the theater made 

clear to the black volunteers that integration was over. Although a large group 

was sent to the 69th Infantry Division to be returned home, most were reassigned to black combat or service units in the occupation army. 

The experiment with integration of platoons was carefully scrutinized. In 

May and June 1945, the Research Branch of the Information and Education 

I04Davis, "History of a Special Section Office of the InspcctorGcncral, " p. 19. 
54 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Division of Eisenhower's theater headquarters made a survey solely to discover 

what white company-grade officers and platoon sergeants thought of the combat performance of the black rifle platoons. Trained interviewers visited seven 

infantry divisions and asked the same question of 250 men- all the available 

company officers and a representative sample of platoon sergeants in twentyfour companies that had had black platoons. In addition, a questionnaire, not 

to be signed, was submitted to approximately 1, 700 white enlisted men in other 

field forces for the purpose of discovering what their attitudes were toward the 

use of black riflemen. No Negro was asked his opinion. 

More than 80 percent of the white officers and noncommissioned officers 

who were interviewed reported that the Negroes had performed "very well" in 

combat; 69 percent of the officers and 83 percent of the noncommissioned officers saw no reason why black infantrymen should not perform as well as white 

infantrymen if both had the same training and experience. Most reported getting along "very well" with the black volunteers; the heavier the combat 

shared, the closer and better the relationships. Nearly all the officers questioned 

admitted that the camaraderie between white and black troops was far better 

than they had expected. Most enlisted men reported that they had at first disliked and even been apprehensive at the prospect of having black troops in their 

companies, but three-quarters of them had changed their minds after serving 

with Negroes in combat, their distrust turning into respect and friendliness. Of 

the officers and noncommissioned officers, 77 percent had more favorable feelings toward Negroes after serving in close proximity to them, the others reported 

no change in attitude; not a single individual stated that he had developed a less 

favorable attitude. A majority of officers approved the idea of organizing 

Negroes in platoons to serve in white companies; the practice, they said, would 

stimulate the spirit of competition between races, avoid friction with prejudiced 

whites, eliminate discrimination, and promote interracial understanding. 

Familiarity wi~h Negroes dispersed fear of the unknown and bred respect for 

them among white troops; only those lacking experience with black soldiers 

were inclined to be suspicious and hostile. 105 

General Brehon B. Somervell, commanding general of the Army Service 

Forces, questioned the advisability of releasing the report. An experiment involving 1,000 volunteers- his figure was inaccurate, actually 2,500 were involved- was hardly, he believed, a conclusive test. Furthermore, organizations 

such as the NAACP might be encouraged to exert pressure for similar experiments among troops in training in the United States and even in the midst 

of active operations in the Pacific theater-pressure, he believed, that might 

hamper training and operations. What mainly concerned Somervell were the 

political implications. Many members of Congress, newspaper editors, and 

others who had given strong support to the War Department were, he contended, "vigorously opposed'' to integration under any conditions. A strong 

105ETO I&E Div Rpt E-118, Research Br, The Utilization of Negro Infantry Platoons in White Com· 

panics, Jun 45; ASP l&E Div Rpt B- 157. Opinions About Negro Infantry Platoons in White Companies of 

Seven Divisions, 3 Jul45. For a general critique of black_performance in World War II, see Chapter 5 below. 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 55 

adverse reaction from this influential segment of the nation's opinion-makers 

might alienate public support for a postwar program of universal military training. 106 

General Omar N. Bradley, the senior American field commander in Europe, 

took a different tack. Writing for the theater headquarters and drawing upon 

such sources of information as the personal observations of some officers, 

General Bradley disparaged the significance of the experiment. Most of the 

black platoons, he observed, had participated mainly in mopping-up operations 

or combat against a disorganized enemy. Nor could the soldiers involved in the 

experiment be considered typical, in Bradley's opinion. They were volunteers of 

above average intelligence according to their commanders. 107 Finally, Bradley 

contended that, while no racial trouble emerged during combat, the mutual 

friendship fostered by fighting a common enemy was threatened when the two 

races were closely associated in rest and recreational areas. Nevertheless, he 

agreed that the performance of the platoons was satisfactory enough to warrant 

continuing the experiment but recommended the use of draftees with average 

qualifications. At the same time, he drew away from further integration by suggesting that the experiment be expanded to include employment of entire black 

rifle companies in white regiments to avoid some of the social difficulties eocountered in rest areas. 108 

General Marshall, the Chief of Staff, agreed with both Somervell and 

Bradley. Although he thought that the possibility of integrating black units into 

white units should be ''followed up,'' he believed that the survey should not be 

made public because "the conditions under which the [black] platoons were 

organized and employed were most unusual.' tto9 Too many of the circumstances 

of the experiment were special-the voluntary recruitment of men for frontline 

duty, the relatively high number of noncommissioned officers among the 

volunteers, and the fact that the volunteers were slightly older and scored higher 

in achievement tests than the average black soldier. Moreover, throughout the 

experiment some degree of segregation, with all its attendant psychological and 

morale problems, had been maintained. 

The platoon experiment was illuminating in several respects. The fact that so 

late in the war thousands of Negroes volunteered to trade the safety of the rear 

for duty at the front said something about black patriotism and perhaps 

something about the Negro's passion for equality. It also demonstrated that, 

106Memo, CG, ASF. to ASW, 11 Jul4:5. ASW 291.2 NT. 

107Thc perccmagc of high school graduau:s and men scoring in AGCr categories I, II, and III among the 

black infantry volunteers was somewhat higher than that of all Negroes in the European theater. As against 22 

percem high school graduates and 29 percem in the first three test score categories for the volunteers, the 

percemages for all Negroes in the theater were 18 and 17 percent. At the same time the averages for black 

volumeers were considerably below those for white riflemen, of whom 41 percem were high school graduates 

and 71 pcrcem in the higher test categories- figures that tend to refute the general's argument. Sec ASF J&E 

DivRptB-1~7. 3Jul4~. 

108Msg, Hq ComZ, ETO, Paris, France (signed Bradley), to WD 3 Jul4~ . For similar reports from the field 

sec, for example, Ltr, Brig Gen R.B. Lovett, ETO AG, to TAG, 7 Scp 45, sub: The Utilization of Negro Platoorl~~n White Companies; Ltr, Hq USFET to TAG, 24 Oct 4?, same sub. Both in AG 291.2 (194~). 

Memo, CofS for ASW, 25 Aug 45, WDCSA 291.2 Negroes (2~ Aug 45). 
INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

ROAD REPAIRMEN, Company A , 279th 

Engineer Battalion, near Rimberg, Germany, December 1944. 

when properly trained and motivated 

and treated with fairness, blacks, like 

whites, performed with bravery and 

distinction in combat. Finally, the experiment successfully attacked one of 

the traditionalists' shibboleths, that 

close association of the races in Army 

units would cause social dissension. 

It is now apparent that World War 

II had little immediate effect on the 

quest for racial equality in the Army. 

The Double V campaign against fascism 

abroad and racism at home achieved 

considerably less chan the activists had 

hoped. Although Negroes shared in the 

prosperity brought by war industries 

and some 800,000 of them served in 

uniform, segregation remained the 

policy of the Army throughout the war, 

just as Jim Crow still ruled in large areas 

of the country. Probably the campaign's most important achievement 

was that during the war the civil rights groups, in organizing for the fight 

against discrimination, began to gather strength and develop techniques that 

would be useful in the decades to come. The Army's experience with black units 

also convinced many that segregation was a questionable policy when the country needed to mobilize fully. 

For its part the Army defended the separation of the races in the name of 

military efficiency and claimed that it had achieved a victory over racial 

discrimination by providing equal treatment and job opportunity for black 

soldiers. But the Army's campaign had also been less than completely successful. True, the Army had provided specialist training and opened job opportunities heretofore denied to thousands of Negroes, and it had a cadre of potential leaders in the hundreds of experienced black officers. For the times, the 

Army was a progressive minority employer. Even so, as an institution it had 

defended the separate but equal doctrine and had failed to come to grips with 

segregation. Under segregation the Army was compelled to combine large 

numbers of undereducated and undertrained black soldiers in units that were 

often inefficient and sometimes surplus to its needs. This system in turn robbed 

the Army of the full services of the educated and able black soldier, who had 

every reason to feel restless and rebellious. 

The Army received no end of advice on its manpower policy during the war. 

Civil rights spokesmen continually pointed out that segregation itself was 

discriminatory, and Judge Hastie in particular hammered on chis proposition 
WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY 57 

before the highest officials of the War Department. In fact Hastie's recommendations, criticisms, and arguments crystallized the demands of civil rights 

leaders. The Army successfully resisted the proposition when its Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies under John McCloy modified but did not appreciably alter the segregation policy. It was a predictable course. The Army's 

racial policy was more than a century old, and leaders considered it dangerous if 

not impossible to revise traditional ways during a global war involving so many 

citizens with pronounced and different views on race. 

What both the civil rights activists and the Army's leaders tended to ignore 

during the war was that segregation was inefficient. The myriad problems 

associated with segregated uniits, in contrast to the efficient operation of the integrated officer candidate schools and the integrated infantry platoons in 

Europe, were overlooked in the atmosphere of charges and denials concerning 

segregation and discrimination. John McCloy was an exception. He had clearly 

become dissatisfied with the inefficiency of the Army's policy, and in the week 

following the Japanese surrender he questioned Navy Secretary James V. Forreseal on the Navy's experiments with integration. "It has always seemed to 

me," he concluded, "that we never put enough thought into the matter of 

making a real military asset out of the very large cadre of Negro personnel we 

received from the country." 110 Although segregation persisted, the fact that it 

hampered military efficiency was the hope of those who looked for a change in 

the Army's policy. 

110Ltr, ASW to SecNav. 22 Aug 45 , ASW 291 .2 NT (Gen). 
CHAPTER 3 

World War II: The Navy 

The period between the world wars marked the nadir of the Navy's relations 

with black America. Although the exclusion of Negroes that began with a clause 

introduced in enlistment regulations in 1922 lasted but a decade, black participation in the Navy remained severely restricted during the rest of the interwar period. In June 1940 the Navy had 4,007 black personnel, 2.3 percent of its 

nearly 170,000-man total. 1 All were enlisted men, and with the exception of six 

regular rated seamen, lone survivors of the exclusion clause, all were steward's 

mates, labeled by the black press "seagoing bellhops." 

The Steward's Branch, composed entirely of enlisted Negroes and oriental 

aliens, mostly Filipinos, was organized outside the Navy's general service. Its 

members carried ratings up to chief petty officer, but wore distinctive uniforms 

and insignia, and even chief stewards never exercised authority over men rated 

in the general naval service. Stewards manned the officers' mess and maintained 

the officers' billets on board ship, and, in some instances, took care of the 

quarters of high officials in the shore establishment. Some were also engaged in 

mess management, menu planning, and the purchase of supplies. Despite the 

fact that their enlistment contracts restricted their training and duties, stewards, 

like everyone else aboard ship, were assigned battle stations, including positions 

at the guns and on the bridge. One of these stewards, Doric (Doris) Miller, 

became a hero on the first day of the war when he manned a machine gun on 

the burning deck of the USS Arizona and desuoyed two enemy planes. 2 

By the end of December 1941 the number of Negroes in the Navy had increased by slightly more than a thousand men to 5,026, or 2.4 percent of the 

whole, but they continued to be excluded from all positions except that of 

steward. 3 1t was not surprising that civil rights organizations and their supporters 

in Congress demanded a change in policy. 

1 All statistics in this chapter arc t:aken from the files of the U.S. Navy. Bureau of Naval Personnel 

(hereafter cited as BuPers). 2Aftcr some delay and considerable pressure from civil rights sources. the Navy identified Miller, awarded 

him the Navy Cross, and promoted him to mess attendant, first class. Miller was later lost at sea. Sec Dennis 

D. Nelson, The Integration of the Negro lnlo the U.S. Navy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 19~1), pp. 

23-2~ . The Navy further honored Miller in 1973 by naming a destroyer escort (DE 1091) after him. 

~here were exceptions to this generalization. The Navy had 43 black men with ratings in the general scrv· 

ice in December 1941: the 6 regulars from the 1920's, 23 others returned from retirement, and 14 members of 

the Fleet Reserve. See U.S. Navy, Bureau of Naval Personnel, "The Negro in the Navy in World War II" 

(1947) (hereafter "BuPcrs Hist"), p. I. This study is part of the bureau's unpublished multivolume ad· 

ministradve history of World War 11. A copy is on file in the bureau's Technical Library. The work is par· 

ticularly valuable for its references to documents that no longer exist. 
WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY 59 

Development of a Wartime Policy 

At first the new secretary, Frank Knox, and the Navy's professional leaders 

resisted demands for a change. Together with Secretary of War Stimson, Knox 

had joined the cabinet in July 1940 when Roosevelt was attempting to defuse a 

foreign policy debate that threatened to explode during the presidential campaign.4 For a major cabinet officer, Knox's powers were severely circumscribed. 

He had little knowledge of naval affairs, and the President, himself once an 

Assistant Secretary of the Navy, often went over his head to deal directly with 

the naval bureaus on shipbuilding programs and manpower problems as well as 

the disposition of the fleet. But Knox was a personable man and a forceful 

speaker, and he was particularly useful to the President in congressional liaison 

and public relations. Roosevelt preferred to work through the secretary in dealing with the delicate question of black participation in the Navy. Knox himself 

was fortunate in his immediate official family. James V. Forrestal became under 

secretary in August 1940; during the next year Ralph A. Bard, a Chicago investment banker, joined the department as assistant secretary, and Adlai E. Stevenson became special assistant. 

Able as these men were, Frank Knox, like most new secretaries unfamiliar 

with the operations and traditions of the vast department, was from the beginning heavily dependent on his naval advisers. These were the chiefs of the 

powerful bureaus and the prominent senior admirals of the General Board, the 

Navy's highest advisory body.) Generally these men were ardent military traditionalists, and, despite the progressive attitude of the secretary's highest civilian 

advisers, changes in the racial policy of the Navy were to be glacially slow. 

The Bureau of Navigation, which was charged with primary responsibility 

for all personnel matters, was opposed to change in the racial composition of the 

Navy. Less than two weeks after Knox's appointment, it prepared for his 

signature a letter to Lieutenant Governor Charles Poletti of New York defending the Navy's policy. The bureau reasoned that since segregation was impractical, exclusion was necessary. Experience had proved, the bureau claimed, that 

when given supervisory responsibility the Negro was unable to maintain 

discipline among white subordinates with the result that teamwork, harmony, 

and ship's efficiency suffered. The Negro, therefore, had to be segregated from 

the white sailor. All-black units were impossible, the bureau argued, because 

40ne of Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders, a World War I field artillery officer, and later publisher of 

the Chicago Dat1y News, Knox was an implacable foe of the New Deal but an ardent internationalist, strongly 

symp,athetic to President Roosevelt's foreign policy. 

In 1940 the bureaus were answerable only to the Secretary of the Navy and the President, but after a 

reorganization of 1942 they began to lose some of their independence. In March 1942 President Roosevelt 

merged the offices of the Chief of Naval Operations and Commander in Chief. U.S. Fleet, giving Admiral 

Ernest J. King, who held both titles, at least sonic direction over most of the bureaus. Evenrually the Chief of 

Naval Operations would become a figure with powers comparable to those exercised by the Army's Chief of 

Staff. See Julius A. Furer. Adminislration of the Navy Department in World War II (Washington: Government Printing Office. 1959). pp. 113-14. This shift in power was readily apparent in the case of the administration of the Navy's racial policy. 
60 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

the service's crammg and distribution 

system demanded that a man in any 

particular rating be available for any 

duty required of that rating in any ship 

or activity in the Navy. The Navy had 

experimented with segregated crews 

after World War I, manning one ship 

with an all-Filipino crew and another 

with an all-Samoan crew, but the 

bureau was not satisfied with the result 

and reasoned that ships with black 

crews would be no more satisfactory. 6 

During the next weeks Secretary 

Knox warmed ro the su bjecr, speaking 

of the difficulty faced by the Navy when 

men had to live aboard ship together. 

He was convinced that "it is no kindness to Negroes to thrust them upon 

men of the white race," and he sug- DORIE MILLER 

gested that the Negro might make his 

major contribution to the armed forces 

in the Army's black regimental organizations. 7 Confronted with widespread 

criticism of this policy, however, Knox asked the Navy's General Board in 

September 1940 to give him "some reasons why colored persons should not be 

enlisted for general service. " 8 He accepted the board's reasons for continued exclusion of Negroes-generally an extension of the ones advanced in the Poletti 

letter- and during the next eighteen months these reasons, endorsed by the 

Chief of Naval Operations and the Bureau of Navigation, were used as the 

department's standard answer to questions on race. 9 They were used at the 

White House conference on 18 June 1941 when, in the presence of black 

leaders, Knox told President Roosevelt that the Navy could do nothing about 

taking Negroes into the general service "because men live in such intimacy 

aboard ship that we simply can't enlist Negroes above the rank of messman. '' 10 

The White House conference revealed an interesting contrast between 

Roosevelt and Knox. Whatever his personal feelings, Roosevelt agreed with 

6

ltr. SecNav to Lt. Gov. Charles Poleni (New York), 24 Jul40, Nav-620-AT, GcnRecsNav. 7Idem to Sen. Arthur Capper (Kansas). I Aug 40. QN/PI4-4. GenRecsNav. 8Mcmo, Rear Adm W. R. Sexton, Chmn of Gen Bd, for Capt Morton L. Deyo. 17 Sep 40, Recs of Gen Bd, 

OpNavArchives. 

9Idcm for SecNav, 17 Scp 40. sub: Enlistment of Colored Persons in rhc U.S. Navy, Rccs of Gcn Bd, OpNavArchives. lst lnd to Ltr, Nad Public Relations Comm of the Universal Negro Improvement Assn to SecNav, 4 Oct 41; Memo, Chief, BuNav, for CNO. 24 Oct 41, and 2d Ind w same, CNO t.o SccNav (Public Relations). Both in BuPers QNIP14-4 (411004). GenRecsNav. For examples of the Navy's response on race, sec 

Ltr, Ens Ross R. Hirshfield. Off of Pub Relations. to Roberson County Training School, 25 Oct 41; Ltr, Ens 

Wil!iam Stucky tOW. Henry White, 4 Feb 42. Both in QN/P14- 4. BuPersRccs. 10

Quoted in White, A Ma11 Called IPhtie , p. 191. 
WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY 

ADMIRAL KING AND SECRETARY KNOX 

on the USS Augusta. 

61 

Knox that integration of the Navy was 

an impractical step in wartime, but 

where Knox saw exclusion from general 

service as the alternative to integration 

Roosevelt sought a compromise. He 

suggested that the Navy "make a 

beginning" by putting some "good 

Negro bands" aboard battleships. 

Under such intimate living conditions 

white and black would learn to know 

and respect each other, and ''then we 

can move on from there.'' 11 In effect 

the President was trying to lead the 

Navy toward a policy similar to that announced by the Army in 1940. While 

his suggestion about musicians was ignored by Secretary Knox, the search for 

a middle way between exclusion and integration had begun. 

The general public knew nothing of 

this search, and in the heightened atmosphere of early war days, charged 

with unending propaganda about the four freedoms and the forces of 

democracy against fascism , the administration's racial attitudes were being 

questioned daily by civil rights spokesmen and by some Democratic 

politicians. 12 As protest against the Navy's racial policy mounted , Secretary 

Knox turned once again to his staff for reassurance . In July 1941 he appointed a 

committee consisting of Navy and Marine Corps personnel officers and including Addison Walker, a special assistant to Assistant Secretary Bard, to conduct a general investigation of that policy. The committee took six months to 

complete its study and submitted both a majority and minority report. 

The majority report marshaled a long list of arguments to prove that exclusion of the Negro was not discriminatory, but' 'a means of promoting efficiency, 

dependability, and flexibility of the Navy as a whole." It concluded that no 

change in policy was necessary since ''within the limitations of the characteristics 

of members of certain races, the enlisted personnel of the Naval Establishment is 

representative of all the citizens of the United States." 13 The majority invoked 

past experience, efficiency, and patriotism to support the status quo, but its 

chorus of reasons for excluding Negroes sounded incongruous amid the patriotic 

din and call to colors that followed Pearl Harbor. 

11Ibid. 12

Memo, W. A. Allen, Office of Public Relations, for Lt Cmdr Smith, SuPers, 29 Jan 42, BuPers 

QN /P-14, BuPersRccs. 13

Ltc, Chief, BuNav, to Chmn, Gen Bd, 22 Jan 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of Colored Race in Other Than 

Messman Branch, Rccs of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives. 
62 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

CREW MEMBERS OF USS ARGONAUT relax and read mail, Pearl Harbor, 1942. 

Demonstrating changing social attitudes and also reflecting the compromise 

solution suggested by the President in June, Addison Walker's minority report 

recommended that a limited number of Negroes be enlisted for general duty 

''on some type of patrol or other small vessel assigned to a particular yard or station." While the enlistments could frankly be labeled experiments, Walker 

argued that such a step would mute black criticism by promoting Negroes our of 

the servant class. The program would also provide valuable data in case the Navy 

was later directed to accept Negroes through Selective Service. Reasoning that a 

man's right to fight for his country was probably more fundamental than his 

right to vote, Walker insisted that the drive for the rights and privileges of black 

citizens was a social force that could not be ignored by the Navy. Indeed, he 

added, ''the reconciliation of social friction within our own country'' should be 

a special concern of the armed forces in wartime. 14 

Although the committee's majority won the day, its arguments were overtaken by events that followed Pearl Harbor. The NAACP, viewing the Navy's 

rejection of black volunteers in the midst of the intensive recruiting campaign, 

again took the issue to the White House. The President, in turn, asked the Fair 

Employment Practices Committee to consider the case. 1

) Committee chairman 

Mark Ethridge conferred with Assistant Secretary Bard, pointing our that since 

Negroes had been eligible for general duty in World War I, the Navy had actually taken a step backward when it restricted them to the Messman's Branch. 

The committee was even willing to pay the price of segregation to insure the 

Negro's return to general duty. Ethridge recommended that the Navy amend its 

policy and accept Negroes for use at Caribbean stations or on harbor craft. 16 

Criticism of Navy policy, hitherto emanating almost exclusively from the civil 

14lbid. 

t)The FEPC was established 25 June 1941 ro carry our Roosevelt's Executive Order 8802 against discrimina· 

tion in employment in defense industries and in the federal government. 16"BuPers Hist," pp. 4- 5; Ltr, Mark Ethridge to Lee Nichols, 14 Jul 53, in Nichols Collection, CMH. 
WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY 63 

rights organizations and a few congressmen, now broadened to include another 

government agency. As President Roosevelt no doubt expected, the Fair 

Employment Practices Committee had come out in support of his compromise 

solution for the Navy. 

But the committee had no jurisdiction over the armed services, and Secretary 

Knox continued to assert that with a war to win he could not risk "crews that are 

impaired in efficiency because of racial prejudice." He admitted to his friend, 

conservationist Gifford Pinchot, that the problem would have to be faced someday, but not during a war. Seemingly in response to Walker and Ethridge, he 

declared that segregated general service was impossible since enough men with 

the skills necessary to operate a war vessel were unavailable even ''if you had the 

entire Negro population of the United States to choose from." As for limiting 

Negroes to steward duties, he explained that this policy avoided the chance that 

Negroes might rise to command whites, "a thing which instantly provokes 

serious trouble.'' 17 Faced in wartime with these arguments for efficiency, Assistant Secretary Bard could only promise Ethridge that black enlistment would be 

taken under consideration. 

At this point the President again stepped in. On 15 January 1942 he asked 

his beleaguered secretary to consider the whole problem once more and suggested a course of action: "I think that with all the Navy activities, BuNav 

might invent something that colored enlistees could do in addition to the rating 

of messman. " 18 The secretary passed the task on to the General Board, asking 

that it develop a plan for recruiting 5,000 Negroes in the general service. 19 

When the General Board met on 23 January to consider the secretary's request, it became apparent that the minority report on the role of Negroes in the 

Navy had gained at least one convert among the senior officers. One board 

member, the Inspector General of the Navy, Rear Adm. Charles P. Snyder, 

repeated the arguments lately advanced by Addison Walker. He suggested that 

the board consider employing Negroes in some areas outside the servant class: in 

the Musician's Branch, for example, because "the colored race is very musical 

.and they are versed in all forms of rhythm," in the Aviation Branch where the 

Army had reported some success in employing Negroes, and on auxiliaries and 

minor vessels, especially transports. Snyder noted that these schemes would involve the creation of training schools, rigidly segregated at first, and that the 

whole program would be ''troublesome and require tact, patience, and 

tolerance" on the part of those in charge. But, he added, "we have so many difficulties to surmount anyhow that one more possibly wouldn't swell the total 

very much." Foreseeing that segregation would become the focal point of black 

protest, he argued that the Navy had to begin accepting Negroes somewhere, 

and it might as well begin with a segregated general service. 

17Ltr, SccNav to Gifford Pinchot, 19 Jan 42, 54-1-15, GenRecsNav. 

t8Quotcd in "BuPers Hist,'' p. 5. 

t9Mcmo, SccNav for Chmn, Gen Bd, 16 Jan 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of Colored Race in Other Than 

Messman Branch, Recs of Gen Bd, OpNavArchivcs. 
64 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Adamant in its opposition to any change in the Navy's policy, the Bureau of 

Navigation ignored Admiral Snyder's suggestions. The spokesman for the 

bureau warned that the 5,000' Negroes under consideration were just an opening 

wedge. "The sponsors of the program," Capt. Kenneth Whiting contended, 

·'desire full equality on the part of the Negro and will not rest content until they 

obtain it." In the end, he predicted, Negroes would be on every man-of-war in 

direct proportion to their percentage of the population. The Commandant of 

the Marine Corps, Maj . Gen. Thomas Holcomb, echoed the bureau's sentiments. He viewed the issue of black enlistments as crucial. 

If we are defeated we must not close our eyes tO the fact that once in they [Negroes] will 

be strengthened in their effort to force themselves into every activity we have. If they are 

not satisfied to be messmen, they will not be satisfied to go into the construction or 

labor battalions. Don't forget the colleges are turning out a large number of welleducated Negroes. I don't know how long we will be able to keep them out of the V- 7 

class. I think not very long. 

The commandant called the enlistment of Negroes "absolutely tragic"; 

Negroes had every opportunity. he added, "to satisfy their aspiration to serve in 

the Army," and their desire to enter the naval service was largely an effort "to 

break into a club that doesn't want them.'' 

The board heard similar sentiments from representatives of the Bureau of 

Aeronautics, the Bureau of Yards and Docks, and, with reservations, from the 

Coast Guard. Confronted with such united opposition from the powedul 

bureaus, the General Board capitulated . On 3 February it reported to the 

secretary that it was unable to submit a plan and strongly recommended that the 

current policy be allowed to stand. The board stated that "if, in the opinion of 

higher authority, political pressure is such as to require the enlistment of these 

people for general service, let it be for that.'' If restriction of Negroes to the 

Messman's Branch was discrimination, the board added, "it was but part and 

parcel of a similar discrimination throughout the United States. " 20 

Secretary Knox was certainly not one to dispute the board's findings, but it 

was a different story in the White House. President Roosevelt refused to accept 

the argument that the only choice lay between exclusion in the Messman's 

Branch and total integration in the general service. His desire to avoid the race 

issue was understandable; the war was in its darkest days, and whatever his 

aspirations for American society, the President was convinced that, while some 

change was necessary, "to go the whole way at one fell swoop would seriously 

impair the general average efficiency of the Navy." 21 He wanted the board to 

study the question further, noting that there were some additional tasks and 

20£nlistmcm of Men of Colored Race (201), 23 Jan 42, Hearings Before the General Board of the Navy, 

1942; Memo, Chmn, Gen Bd, for SecNav, 3 Feb 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of Colored Race in Other Than 

Messman Branch. Both in Recs of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives. 21Quoted in "BuPers Hist," p. 6. 
WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY 65 

MESSMEN VOLUNTEER AS GUNNERS, Pactfic task force, july 1942. 

some special assignments that could be worked out for the Negro that ''would 

not inject into the whole personnel of the Navy the race question. ' '

22 

The Navy got the message. Armed with these instructions from the White 

House, the General Board called on the bureaus and other agencies to furnish 

lists of stations or assignments where Negroes could be used in other than the 

Messman's Branch, adding that it was "unnecessary and inadvisable" to emphasize further the undesirability of recruitiqg Negroes. Freely interpreting the 

President's directive, the board decided that its proposals had to provide for 

segregation in order to prevent the injection of the race issue into the Navy. It 

rejected the idea of enlisting Negroes in such selected ratings as musician and 

carpenter's mate or designating a branch for Negroes (the possibility of an allblack aviation department for a carrier was discussed). Basing its decision on the 

plans quickly submitted by the bureaus, the General Board recommended a 

course that it felt offered "least disadvantages and the least difficulty of accomplishment as a war measure": the formation of black units in the shore 

establishment, black crews for naval distr:ict local defense craft and selected 

22Memo, SccNav for Chmn, Gen Bd, 14 Feb 42, Rc:cs of Gcn Bd. OpNavArcbives. The quotation is from 

the Knox Memo and is not necessarily in the exact words of the President. 
66 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Coast Guard cutters, black regiments in the Seabees, and composite battalions 

in the Marine Corps. The board asked that the Navy Department be granted 

wide latitude in deciding the number of Negroes to be accepted as well as their 

rate of enlistment and the method of recruiting, training, and assignment. 23 

The President agreed to the plan, but balked at the board's last request. " I 

think this is a matter," he told Secretary Knox, "to be determined by you and 

me." ~ 

The two-year debate over the admission of Negroes ended just in time, for 

the opposition to the Navy's policy was enlisting new allies daily. The national 

press made the expected invidious comparisons when Joe Louis turned over his 

share of the purse from the Louis-Baer fight to Navy Relief, and Wendell 

Willkie in a well-publicized speech at New York's Freedom House excoriated 

the Navy's racial practices as a "mockery" of democracy. 2) But these were the 

last shots fired . On 7 April 1942 Secretary Knox announced the Navy's capitulation. The Navy would accept 277 black volunteers per week- it was not yet drafting anyone-for enlistment in all ratings of the general service of the reserve 

components of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. Their actual entry 

would have to await the construction of suitable, meaning segregated, facilities, 

but the Navy's goal for the first year was 14,000 Negroes in the general service. 26 

Members of the black community received the news with mixed emotions. 

Some reluctantly accepted the plan as a first step; the NAACP's Crisis called it 

"progress toward a more enlightened point of view." Others, like the National 

Negro Congress, complimented Knox for his "bold, patriotic action. " 27 But 

almost all were quick to point out that the black sailor would be segregated, 

limited to the rank of petty officer, and, except as a steward, barred from sea 

duty. 28 The Navy's plan offered all the disadvantages of the Army's system with 

none of the corresponding advantages for participation and advancement. The 

NAACP hammered away at the segregation angle, informing its public that the 

old system, which had fathered inequalities and humiliations in the Army and 

in civilian life, was now being followed by the Navy. A. Philip Randolph complained that the change in Navy policy merely "accepts and extends and consolidates the policy of Jim-Crowism in the Navy as well as proclaims it as an ac23Memos, Chmn, Gen Bd, for Chief, BuNav, Cmdt, CG, and Cmdt, MC, 18 Feb 42, sub: Enlistment of 

Men of Colored Race in Other Than Messman Branch. For examples of responses, see Ltr, Cmdt, to Chmn, 

Gcn 13d, 24 Feb 42, same sub; Memo, Chief, BuNav, for Chmn, Gcn Bd, 7 Mar 42, same sub; Memo, CNO 

for Chief, BuNav, 25 Feb 42, same sub, with 1st lnd by CINCUSFLT, 28 Feb 42, same sub. The final enlist· 

mem plan is found in Memo, Chmn, Gcn Bd, for SecNa", 20 Mar 42, same sub (G. B. No 421). All in Recs of 

Gen Bd, OpNavArchives. It was transmitted to the President in Ltr, SecNav to President, 27 Mar 42, 

Pt4-4/MM. GenRecsNav. 24Memo. President for Sccy of Navy, 31 Mar 42, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York. 2

)New York Times, January 10 and March 20, 1942. 

260ffice of SecNav, Press Release, 7 Apr 42. 27"The Navy Makes a Gesture," Crisis 49 (May 1942):51. The National Negro Congress quotation 

reprinted in Dennis D. Nelson's summary of reaclions to the Secretary of the Navy's announcement. See 

Nelson, "The Integration of the Negro in the United States Navy, 1776-1947" (NAVEXOS-P-526), p. 38. 

(This earlier and different version of Nelson's published work, derived from his mastet's thesis, was sponsored 

by the U.S. Navy.) 28 Although essentially correct, the critics were technically inaccurate since some Negroes would be assigned 

to Coast Guard cutters which qualified as sea duty. 
WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY 67 

cepted, recognized government ideology that the Negro is inferior to the white 

man. " 29 The editors of the National Urban League's Opportunity concluded 

that, "faced with the great opportunity to strengthen the forces of Democracy, 

the Navy Department chose to affirm the charge that Japan is making against 

America to the brown people ... that the so-called Four Freedoms enunciated 

in the great 'Atlantic Charter' were for white men only. '' 30 

A Segregated Navy 

With considerable alacrity the Navy set a practical course for the employment of its black volunteers. On 21 April 1942 Secretary Knox approved a plan 

for training Negroes at Camp Barry, an isolated section of the Great Lakes Training Center. Later renamed Camp Robert Smalls after a black naval hero of the 

Civil War, the camp not only offered the possibility of practically unlimited expansion but, as the Bureau of Navigation put it, made segregation ''less obvious'' to recruits. The secreta.ry also approved the use of facilities at Hampton 

Institute, the well-known black school in Virginia, as an advanced training 

school for black recruits. 31 

Black enlistments began on 1 June 1942, and black volunteers started entering Great Lakes later that month in classes of 277 men. At the same time the 

Navy opened enlistments for an unHmited number of black Seabees and 

messmen. Lt. Comdr. Daniel Armstrong commanded the recruit program at 

Camp Smalls. An Annapolis graduate, son of the founder of Hampton Institute, Armstrong fi.rst came to the attention of Knox in March 1942 when he 

submitted a plan for the employment of black sailors that the secretary considered practical. 32 Under Armstrong's energetic leadership, black recruits 

received training that was in some respects superior to that afforded whites. For 

all his success, however, Armstrong was strongly criticized, especially by 

educated Negroes who resented his theories of education. Imbued with the 

paternalistic attitude of Tuskegee and Hampton, Armstrong saw the Negro as 

possessing a separate culture more attuned to vocational training. He believed 

that Negroes needed special treatment and discipline in a totally segregated environment free from white competition. Educated Negroes, on the other hand, 

saw in this special treatment another form of discrimination. 33 

During the first six months of the new segregated training program, before 

the great influx of Negroes from the draft, the Navy set the training period at 

twelve weeks. Later, when it had reluctantly abandoned the longer period, the 

Navy discovered that the regular eight-week course was sufficient. Approximately 31 percent of those graduating from the recruit course were qualified for 

2

9Quoted in Nelson, " The Integration of the Negro," p. 37. 

3°0pportunily (May 1942), p. 82. 

31

Memo, Chief, BuNav, for SecNav, 17 Apr 42, sub: Training Facilities for Negro Recruits, Nav- 102; 

Memo, SecNav for Rear Adm Randall Jacobs, 21 Apr 42, 54-1-22 . Both in GcnRccsNav. 

32Memo, SccNav for Chmn, Gcn Bd, 7 Mar 42, GenRecsNav. 33For a discussion of Armstrong's philosophy from the viewpoint of an educated black recruit, sec Nelson, 

"Integration of the Negro," pp. 28- 34 . Sec also Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb 70. CMH files. 
68 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Class A schools and entered advanced 

classes to receive training that would 

normally lead to petty officer rating for 

the top graduates and prepare men for 

assignment to naval stations and local 

defense and district craft. There they 

would serve in such class ' 'A' ' specialties as radioman, signalman, and 

yeomap and the other occupational 

specialties such as machinist, mechanic, 

carpenter, electrician, cook, and 

baker. 34 Some of these classes were held 

at Hampton, but, as the number of 

black recruits increased, the majority remained at Camp Smalls for advanced 

training. 

The rest of the recruit graduates, 

those unqualified for advanced schooling, were divided. Some went directly 

to naval stations and local defense and 

district craft where they relieved whites 

ELECTRICIAN MATES string power lines 

in the Central Paczjic. 

as seaman, second class, and fireman, third class, and as trainees in specialties 

that required no advanced schooling; the rest, approximately eighty men per 

week, went to naval ammunition depots as unskilled laborers. 35 

The Navy proceeded to assimilate the black volunteers along these lines, suffering few of the personnel problems that plagued the Army in the first months 

of the war. In contrast to the Army's chaotic situation, caused by the thousands 

of black recruits streaming in from Selective Service, the Navy's plans for its 

volunteers were disrupted only because qualified Negroes showed little inclination to flock to the Navy standard, and more than half of those who did were rejected . The Bureau of Naval PersonneJ36 reported that during the first three 

weeks of recruitment only 1,261 Negroes volunteered for general service, and 58 

percent of these had to be rejected for physical and other reasons. The Chief of 

Naval Personnel, Rear Adm. Randall Jacobs, was surprised at the small number 

of volunteers, a figure far below the planners' expectations, and his surprise 

turned to concern in the next months as the seventeen-year-old volunteer inductees, the primary target of the armed forces recruiters, continued to choose 

the Army over the Navy at a ratio of 10 to l Y The Navy's personnel officials 

agreed that they had to attract their proper share of intelligent and able Negroes 

34With the exception of machinist school. where blacks were in training twice as long as whites, specialist 

training for Negroes and whites was similar in length. See ''BuPers Hist," pp. 28-30, 60-61. 

HBuPcrs, "Reports, Schedules, and Cham Relating to Enlistment, Training, and Assignment of Negro 

Personnel," 5 Jun42, Pers-617, BuPersRecs. 

36ln May 1942 the name of the Bureau of Navigation was changed to the Bureau of Naval Personnel to 

reflecr more accurately the duties of the organization. 37Mcmo, Chief, NavPcrs, for CO, Great Lakes NTC, 23 Apr 43, P14-1, BuPersRecs. 
WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY 69 

but seemed unable to isolate the cause of the disinterest. Admiral Jacobs 

blamed it on a lack of publicity; the bureau's historians, perhaps unaware of the 

Navy's nineteenth century experience with black seamen, later attributed it to 

Negroes' ''relative unfamiliarity with the sea or the large inland waters and their 

consequent fear of the water.' '

38 

The fact was, of course, that Negroes shunned the Navy because of its recent 

reputation as the exclusive preserve of white America. Only when the Navy 

began assigning black recruiting specialists to the numerous naval districts and 

using black chief petty officers, reservists from World War I general service, at 

recruiting centers to explain the new opportunities for Negroes in the Navy was 

the bureau able to overcome some of the young men's natural reluctance to 

volunteer. By 1 February 1943 the Navy had 26,909 Negroes (still 2 percent of 

the total enlisted): 6,662 in the general service; 2,020 in the Seabees; and 

19,227, over two-thirds of the total, in the Steward's Branch. 39 

The smooth and efficient distribution of black recruits was short-lived. 

Under pressure from the Army, the War Manpower Commission, and in particular the White House, the Navy was forced into a sudden and significant expansion of its black recruit program. The Army had long objected to the Navy's 

recruitment method, and as early as February 1942 Secretary Stimson was calling 

the volunteer recruitment system a waste of manpower. 40 He was even more 

direct when he complained to President Roosevelt that through voluntary 

recruiting the Navy had avoided acceptance of any considerable number of 

Negroes. Consequently, the Army was now faced with the possibility of having 

to accept an even greater proportion of Negroes ''with adverse effect on its combat efficiency." The solution to this problem, as Stimson saw it, was for the 

Navy to take its recruits from Selective Service.41 Stimson failed to win his point. 

The President accepted the Navy's argument that segregation would be difficult 

to maintain on board ship. "lf the Navy living conditions on board ship were 

similar to the Army living conditions on land," he wrote Stimson, "the problem would be easier but the circumstances ... being such as they are, I feel 

that it is best to continue the present system at this time.' '

42 

But the battle over racial quotas was only beginning. The question of the 

number of Negroes in the Navy was only part of the much broader considerations and conflicts over manpower policy that finally led the President, on 5 

December 1942, to direct the discontinuance in all services of volunteer enlistment of men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-eight. 43 Beginning in 

February 1943 all men in this age group would be obtained through Selective 

Service. The order also placed Selective Service under the War Manpower Commission . 

.18"BuPers Hist," p. 54. 

39Ibid .• p. 9. 40Mcmo, SW for SecNav, 16 Feb 42, sub: Continuing of Voluntary Recruiting by the Navy, QN/Pl4-4, 

GenRccsNav. 41 1dem for President. 16 Mar 42, copy in QN/Pl4-4, GenRecsNav. 42Memo. President for SW. 20 Mar42. copy in QN/P14-4, GenRccsNav. 

43Exccutivc Order 9279. 5 Dec 42. 
70 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

The Navy issued its first call for inductees from Selective Service in February 

1943, adopting the Army's policy of placing its requisition on a racial basis and 

specifying the number of whites and blacks needed for the Navy, Marine Corps, 

and Coast Guard. ·The Bureau of Naval Personnel planned to continue its old 

monthly quota of about 1,200 Negroes for general service and 1,500 for the 

Messman's Branch. Secretary Knox explained to the President that it would be 

impossible for the Navy to take more Negroes without resorting to mixed crews 

in the fleet, which, Knox reminded Roosevelt, was a policy "contrary to the 

President's program." The President agreed with Knox and told him so to advise Maj. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, Director of Selective Service.44 

The problem of drafting men by race was a major concern of the Bureau 

of Selective Service and its parent organization, the War Manpower Commission. At a time when a general shortage of manpower was developing and industry was beginning to fed the effects of the draft, Negroes still made up 

only 6 percent of the armed forces, a little over half their percentage of the 

population, and almost all of these were in the Army. The chairman of the 

War Manpower Commission, Paul V. McNutt, explained to Secretary Knox 

as he had to Secretary Stimson that the practice of placing separate calls for 

white and black registrants could not be justified. Not only were there 

serious social and legal implications in the existing draft practices, he 

pointed out, but the Selective Service Act itself prohibited racial discrimination. It was necessary, therefore, to draft men by order number and not by 

color.45 

On top of this blow, the Navy came under fire from another quarter. The 

President was evidently still thinking about Negroes in the Navy. He wrote 

to the secretary on 22 February: 

I guess you were dreaming or maybe I was dreaming if Randall Jacobs is right in 

regard to what I am supposed to have said about employment of negroes in the Navy. If 

I did say that such employment should be stopped, I must have been talking in my 

sleep. Most decidedly we must continue the employment of negroes in the Navy, and I 

do not think it the least bit necessary to put mixed crews on the ships. I can find a thousand ways of emfloying them without doin~ so. 

The point o the thing is this. There ts going to be a great deal of feeling if the 

Government in winning this war does not employ approximately 10% of negroes- their 

actual percentage to the total population. The Army is nearly up to this percentage but 

the Navy is so far below it that it will be deeply criticized by anybody who wants to check 

into the details. 

Perhaps a check by you showing exactly where all white enlisted men are serving and 

where aU colored enlisted men are serving will show you the great number of places 

where colored men could serve, where they are not serving now-shore duty of aU kinds, 

together with the handling of many kinds of yard craft. 

You know the headache we have had about this and the reluctance of the Navy to 

have any negroes. You and I have had to veto that Navy reluctance and I think we have 

to do it again.46 

44Memo. SccNav for Rear Adm Randall Jacobs, 5 Feb 4 3. 54-1-22, GenRecsNav. 

45Ltr, Paul McNuH to SccNav, 17 Feb 43. WMC Gen files, NARS. 

46Mcmo, Prcsidcndor SecNav, 22 Feb 43. FOR Library. 
WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY 71 

In an effort to save the quota concept, the Bureau of Naval Personnel 

ground out new figures that would raise the current call of 2, 700 Negroes per 

month to 5,000 in April and 7,350 for each of the remaining months of 1943. 

Armed with these figures, Secretary Knox was able to promise Commissioner 

McNutt that 10 percent of the men inducted for the rest of 1943 would be 

Negroes, although separate calls had to be continued for the time being to permit adjusting the flow of Negroes to the expansion of facilities. 47 In other words, 

the secretary promised to accept 71,900 black draftees in 1943; he did not promise to increase the black strength of the Navy to 10 percent of the total. 

Commissioner McNutt understood the distinction and found the Navy's offer wanting for two reasons. The proposed schedule was inadequate to absorb 

the backlog of black registrants who should have been inducted into the armed 

services, and it did not raise the percentage of Negroes in the Navy to a figure 

comparable to their strength in the national population. McNutt wanted the 

Navy to draft at least 125,000 Negroes before January 1944, and he insisted that 

the practice of placing separate calls be terminated "as soon as feasible." 48 The 

Navy finally struck a compromise with the commission, agreeing that up to 

14,150 Negroes a month would be inducted for the rest of 1943 to reach the 

125 ,000 figure by January 1944.49 The issue of separate draft calls for Negroes 

and whites remained in abeyance while the services made common cause against 

the commission by insisting that the orderly absorption of Negroes demanded a 

regular program that could only be met by maintaining the quota system. 

Total black enlistments never reached 10 percent of the Navy's wartime 

enlisted strength but remained nearer the 5 percent mark. But this figure masks 

the Navy's racial picture in the later years of the war after it became dependent 

on Selective Service. The Navy drafted 150,955 Negroes during the war, 11.1 

percent of all the men it drafted. In 1943 alone the Navy placed calls with Selective Service for 116,000 black draftees. Although Selective Service was unable to 

fill the monthly request completely, the Navy received 77,854 black draftees 

(versus 672,437 whites) that year, a 240 percent rise over the 1942 black enlistment rate . so 

Although it wrestled for several months with the problem of distributing the 

increased number of black draftees, the Bureau of Naval Personnel could invent 

nothing new. The Navy, Knox told President Roosevelt, would continue to 

segregate Negroes and restrict their service to certain occupations. Its increased 

black strength would be absorbed in twenty-seven new black Seabee battalions, 

in which Negroes would serve overseas as stevedores; in black crews for harbor 

craft and local defense forces; and in billets for cooks and port hands. The rest 

47Ltr. Knox to McNutt, 26 Feb 43, WMC Gen files. 48Lcr, McNutt to Knox, 23 Mar 43, WMC Gen files. 49Lu, SecNav to Paul McNutt, 13 Apr 43; Ltr, McNutt to Knox, 23 Apr 43; both in WMC Gen files. 

)

0Selcctive Service System. Special Groups, vol. II, pp. 198-201. See also Memos. Director of Planning 

and Control, SuPers, for Chief, SuPers, 25 Feb 43. sub: Increase in Colored Personnel for the Navy; and I Apr 

43, sub: Increase in Negro Personnel in Navy. Both in P-14, BuPersRecs. 
72 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

would be sent to shore stations for guard and miscellaneous duties in concentrations up to about 50 percent of the total station strength. The Presid~nt approved the Navy's proposals, and the distribution of Negroes followed these 

lines.H 

To smooth the racial adjustments implicit in these plans, the Bureau of 

Naval Personnel developed two operating rules: Negroes would be assigned pnly 

where need existed, and, whenever possible, those from northern communities 

would not be used in the south. These rules caused some peculiar adjustments 

in administration. Negroes were not assigned to naval districts for distribution 

according to the discretion of the commander, as were white recruits. Rather, 

after conferring with local commanders, the bureau decided on the number of 

Negroes to be included in station complements and the types of jobs they would 

fill. It then assigned the men to duty accordingly, and the districts were instructed not to change the orders without consulting the bureau. Subsequently 

the bureau reinforced this rule by enjoining the commanders to use Negroes in 

the ratings for which they had been trained and by sending bUieau representatives to the various commands to check on compliance. 

Some planners feared that the concentration of Negroes at shore stations 

might prove detrimental to efficiency and morale. Proposals were circulated in 

the Bureau of Naval Personnel for the inclusion of Negroes in small numbers in 

the crews of large combat ships-for example, they might be used as firemen 

and ordinary seamen on the new aircraft carriers-but Admiral Jacobs rejected 

the recommendations. 52 The Navy was not yet ready to try integration, it 

seemed, even though racial disturbances were becoming a distinct possibility in 

1943. For as Negroes became a larger part of the Navy, they also became a 

greater source of tension. The reasons for the tension were readily apparent. 

Negroes were restricted for the most part to shore duty, concentrated in large 

groups and assigned to jobs with little prestige and few chances of promotion. 

They were excluded from the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer 

Emergency Service), the Nurse Corps, and the commissioned ranks. And they 

were rigidly segregated. 

Although the Navy boasted that Negroes served in every rating and at every 

task, in fact almost all were used in a limited range of occupations. Denied 

general service assignments on warships, trained Negroes were restricted to the 

relatively few billets open in the harbor defense, district, and small craft service. 

Although assigning Negroes to these duties met the President's request for 

variety of opportunity, the small craft could employ only 7, 700 men at most, a 

minuscule part of the Navy's black strength. 

Most Negroes performed humbler duties. By mid-1944 over 38,000 black 

sailors were serving as mess stewards, cooks, and bakers. These jobs remained in 

the Negro's eyes a symbol of his second-class citizenship in the naval establish51 Memos, SecNav for President, 25 Feb and 14 Apr 43. quoted in "SuPers Hisr," pp. 13-14; Memo. 

Actg Chief, NavPers, for SecNav, 24 Feb 43, sub: Employment of Colored Personnel in the Navy, Pers 10, 

GenRecsNav. For Roosevelt's approval sec "SuPers Hist," p. 14. 

52"BuPersHisr, " p. 41. 
WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY 

LABORERS AT NAVAl AMMUNITION DEPOT. Sai/or.r passing 5-inch canisters, St. 

Julien's Creek, Virginia. 

73 

ment. Under pressure to provide more stewards to serve the officers whose 

number multiplied in the early months of the war, recruiters had netted all the 

men they could for that separate duty. Often recruiters took in many as stewards 

who were equipped by education and training for better jobs, and when these 

men were immediately put into uniforms and trained on the job at local naval 

stations the result was often dismaying. The Navy thus received poor service as 

well as unwelcome publicity for maintaining a segregated servants' branch. In 

an effort to standardize the training of messmen, the Bureau of Naval Personnel 

established a stewards school in the spring of 1943 at Norfolk and later one at 

Bainbridge, Maryland. The change in training did little to improve the standards of the service and much to intensify the feeling of isolation among many 

stewards. · Another 12,000 Negroes served as artisans and laborers at overseas bases. 

Over 7, 000 of these were Sea bees, who, with the exception of two regular construction battalions that served with distinction in the Pacific, were relegated to 

''special'' battalions stevedoring cargo and supplies. The rest were laborers in 

base companies assigned to the South Pacific area. These units were commanded 

by white officers, and almost all the petty officers were white. 

Approximately half the Negroes in the Navy were detailed to shore billets 

within the continental United States. Most worked as laborers at ammunition or 
74 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

SEA BEES IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC righting an undermined water tank. 

supply depots, at air stations, and at section bases, 53 concentrated in large allblack groups and sometimes commanded by incompetent white officers. 4 

While some billets existed in practically every important rating for graduates of 

the segregated specialty schools, these jobs were so few that black specialists were 

often assigned instead to unskilled laboring jobs.)) Some of these men were 

among the best educated Negroes in the Navy, natural leaders capable of articulating their dissatisfaction. They resented being barred from the fighting, 

and their resentment, spreading through the thousands of Negroes in the shore 

establishment, was a prime cause of racial tension. 

No black women had been admitted to the Navy. Race was not mentioned 

in the legislation establishing theW AVES in 1942, but neither was exclusion on 

account of color expressly forbidden. The WAVES and the Women's Reserve of 

both the Coast Guard (SPARS) and the Marine Corps therefore celebrated their 

second birthday exclusively white. The Navy Nurse Corps was also totally white. 

In answer to protests passed to the service through Eleanor Roosevelt, the Navy 

admitted in November 1943 that it had a shortage of 500 nurses, but since 

HNaval districts organized section bases during the war with responsibility, among other things, for guarding beaches, harbors, and installations and maintaining equipment. 

)

4

See CNO ALNAV. 7 Aug 44 , quoted in Nelson, "Integration of the Negro," p . 46. 

))Memo, Actg Chief, NavPers, for Cmdts. AlNav Districts et a!., 26 Sep 44, sub: Enlisted Personnel- Utilization of in Field for which Specifically Trained, Pers 16-3/MM. BuPcrsRecs. 
WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY 75 

another 500 white nurses were under indoctrination and training, the Bureau of 

Medicine and Surgery explained, "the question relative to the necessity for accepting colored personnel in this category is not apparent.'' 6 

Another major cause of unrest among black seamen was the matter of rank 

and promotion. With the exception of the Coast Guard, the naval establishment had no black officers in 1943, and none were contemplated. Nor was there 

much opportunity for advancement in the ranks. Barred from service in the 

fleet, the nonrated seamen faced strong competition for the limited number of 

petty officer positions in the shore establishment. In consequence, morale 

throughout the ranks deteriorated. 

The constant black complaint, and the root of the Navy's racial problem, 

was segregation. It was especially hard on young black recruits who had never experienced legal segregation in civilian life and on the "talented tenth," the 

educated Negroes, who were quickly frustrated by a policy that decided opportunity and assignment on the basis of color. They particularly resented 

segregation in housing, messing, and recreation. Here segregation off the job, 

officially sanctioned, made manifest by signs distinguishing facilities for white 

and black, and enforced by military as well as civilian police, was a daily 

reminder for the Negro of the Navy's discrimination. 

Such discrimination created tension in the ranks that periodically released 

itself in racial disorder. The first sign of serious unrest occurred in June 1943 

when over half the 640 Negroes of the Naval Ammunition Depot at St. Julien's 

Creek, Virginia, rioted against alleged discrimination in segregated seating for a 

radio show. In July, 744 Negroes of the 80th Construction Battalion staged a 

protest over segregation on a transport in the Caribbean. Yet, naval investigators cited leadership problems as a major factor in these and subsequent 

incidents, and at least one commanding officer was relieved as a consequence. 7 

Progressive Experiments 

Since the inception of black enlistment there had been those in the Bureau 

of Naval Personnel who argued for the establishment of a group to coordinate 

plans and policies on the training and use of black sailors. Various proposals 

were considered, but only in the wake of the racial disturbances of 1943 did the 

bureau set up a Special Programs Unit in its Planning and Control Activity to 

oversee the whole black enlistment program. In the end the size of the unit 

governed the scope of its program. Originally the unit was to monitor all transactions involving Negroes in the bureau's operating divisions, thus relieving the 

%Ltr. Eleanor Roosevelt to SecNav. 20 Nov 43; Ltr. SecNav to Mrs. Roosevelt, 27 Nov 43; both in 

BUMED-S-EC, GenRecsNav. Well known for her interest in rhe cause of racial justice, the President's wife 

received many complaints during the war concerning discrimination in the armed forces. Mrs. Roosevelt often 

passed such protests along to the service secretaries for acti.on. Although there is no doubt where Mrs. 

Roosevelt's sympathies lay in these matters, her influence was slight on the policies and practices of the Army 

or Navy. Her influence on the President's thinking is, of course. another matter. See White. A Man Called 

UVhue ,pp. 168-69.190. 

Hfor a discussion of these racial disturbances, see ''SuPers Hist," pp. 75-80. 
76 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Enlisted Division of the critical task of 

distributing billets for Negroes. It was 

also supposed to advise local commanders on race problems and interpret 

departmental policies for them. When 

finall y established in August 1943, the 

unit consisted of only three officers, a 

size which considerably limited its activities. Still, the unit worked diligently 

to improve the lot of the black sailor, 

and eventually from this office would 

emerge the plans that brought about 

the integration of the Navy. 

The Special Programs Unit's patron 

saint and the guiding spirit of the 

Navy's liberalizing race program was Lt. 

Comdr. Christopher S. Sargent. He 

never served in the unit himself, but 

helped find the two lieutenant commanders, Donald 0. VanNess and COMMANDER SARGENT 

Charles E. Dillon, who worked under 

Capt. Thomas F. Darden in the Plans and Operations Section of the Bureau of 

Naval Personnel and acted as liaison between the Special Programs Unit and its 

civilian superiors. A legendary figure in the bureau, the 31-year-old Sargent arrived as a lieutenant, junior grade, from Dean Acheson's law firm, but his rank 

and official position were no measure of his influence in the Navy Department. 

By birth and training he was used to moving in the highest circles of American 

society and government, and he had wide-ranging interests and duties in the 

Navy. Described by a superior as ''a philosopher who could not tolerate segregation," )S Sargent waged something of a moral crusade to integrate the Navy. He 

was convinced that a social change impossible in peacetime was practical in war. 

Not only would integration build a more efficient Navy, it might also lead the 

way to changes in American society that would bridge the gap between the 

races.)? In effect, Sargent sought to force the generally conservative Bureau of 

Naval Personnel into making rapid and sweeping changes in the Navy's racial 

policy. 

During its first months of existence the Special Programs Unit tried to quiet 

racial unrest by a rigorous application of the separate but equal principle. It 

began attacking the concentration of Negroes in large segregated groups in the 

naval districts by creating more overseas billets. Toward the end of 1943 , 

)

81nterv, Lee Nichols with Rear Adm. R. H. Hillenkoeuer, 19H. in Nichols Collection. CMH. 

)?Nichols, Breakthrough on the Color Frotll, pp. 54-59. Nichols supports his affectionate porrrait of 

Sargem, who died shortly after the war, with interviews of many wartime officials who worked in the Bureau of 

Naval Personnel with Sargent. See Nichols Collection, CMH. See also Christopher Smith Sargent, 1911-1946. 

a privately printed memorial prepared by the Sargent family in 1947. copy in CMH. 
WORtlJ WAlt II: 1'Hjj NAVY 

N~gr6~§ wttr~ btdnj tl:s§ ign~d in IJl't!tHtu HY~~~I'§ t6 dtny In th@ flat;Ul€ lUi §h@f@ 

@§tftb!I§hmtHU§ ~m~lab6aiid §ffHtll titd@n§@, dlml€t, !lnd y~~:rd €fah. fhtJ Duf@il.tl 6f Nt~:val Pf§f§@nH@l t~: §tJ W!t~:tt!€1 fi@W §f!@€htlti@§ f6f W@1Jf6@§ ln th@ gtJn@r!ll §tnvle@, 

On@ lmptm!l ~ ~~:ddhlt:Jn WM thf! W!~tlt:Jn 6f blatik §h@f@ 1\HHf'@l unit§ f€lr whkh a 

§€h66l W1l§ §tam~d t~:t 'lf@iU Lak@§, Th@ ~Pf!€ l Pf€11Jftl:ffi§ Unit @§et~:bli§h@d 11 

f@ffit!rlial tr1lin1n1J et!nt@f ft:Jf HlittmH@ dfllltt!@§ u {;amp fi€lbtm ~m!ltl §, dfiiwlng tht! fa€Yhy h€1m blaek §~rvle~ffi@H wht:J ht~:tl btHHl tJtll:l€iit€lf§ In €lviHllfi !H@, .lu~ 

~1V6 V@:\y@@k €€ltll'§@ IJllV@ th~ §UJ~~ftt§ th@ (1_Yl~fll!!ftt t:Jf fl fihh 1Jfil€lf~ !!dtltllUi6~ 

1~ ~d.€1IU€1ft t€1 f@ID:Jlllf f@€l'UH H'1llftln1J.• i\f3fll't:J~lm.~t@ y l ~ 1 . N@1Jf6~§ t~€lk thl§ 

WUHlng b@f€lr@ tJt@ §€ h€lt:.~l wa§ et:Jft§€lid11:t@cl wuh a §lmthu 6fiJilHlMWm ft:Jf 

whh@§ a€ )}ftlnbr:ltlg@l Mllryl:ift€1l iH th@ la§t: ffi€l~th§ €If th@ Wilf,6o. 

At th@ t:Jth@f @ntl €If th@ §f3~€Hum, th~ §f}@€Hil Pr€llfNI.ffi§ fJnH W€lfk@rl f€11' th@ ~H ~m u§@ 6f :t €1€ ©hl§§ A §€h€113l ~riirluat@§ ~v f@ft@WiHtf th~ aH11:€k 6ft im= 

J?f61Jer a§§ gftffl~ft£§, Th@ BUf@aU Hl~ 113Hg lielcl ~lun the JlfB}j@f a§s gflffi@ft~ ~£ 

black specialists was of fundamental importance to morale and efficiency, and in 

July 1943 it had ordered that all men must be used in the ratings and for the 

types of work for which they had been trained. 61 But the unit discovered con· 

siderable deviation from this policy in some districts, especially in the south, 

where there was a tendency to regard Negroes as an extra labor source above the 

regular military complement. In December 1943 the Special Programs Unit got 

the bureau to rule in the name of manpower efficiency that, with the exception 

of special units in the supply departments at South Boston and Norfolk, no 

black sailor could be assigned to such civilian jobs as maintenance work and 

stevedoring in the continental United States.62 

These reforms were welcome, but they ignored the basic dilemma: the only 

way to abolish concentrations of shore-based Negroes was to open up positions 

for them in the fleet. Though many black sailors were best suited for unskilled 

or semiskilled billets, a significant number had technical skills that could be 

properly used only if these men were assigned to the fleet. To relieve the racial 

tension and to end the waste of skilled manpower engendered by the misuse of 

these men, the Special Programs Unit pressed for a chance to test black seamanship . Admiral King agreed, and in early 1944 the Bureau of Naval Personnel 

assigned 196 black enlisted men and 44 white officers and petty officers to the 

USS Mason, a newly commissioned destroyer escort, with the understanding 

that all enlisted billets would be filled by Negroes as soon as those qualified to 

fill them had been trained. It also assigned 53 black rated seamen and 14 white 

officers and noncommissioned officers to a patrol craft, the PC 1264.63 Both 

ships eventually replaced their white petty officers and some of their officers 

with Negroes. Among the latter was Ens. Samuel Gravely, who was to become 

the Navy's first black admiral. 

60For further discussion, see Nelson, ''Integration of the Negro.'' pp. 124-46. 61BuPcrs Ltr, Pers 106-MBR, 12 }ul4}. 62"BuPers Hist," p. 53. 

63Memo, Chief, BuPers, for CINCUSFLEET, 1 Dec 43. sub: Negro Personnel, P16/ MM, BuPersRecs. The 

latter experiment has been chronicled by its commanding officer, Eric Purdon, in Black Company: The Story 

ofSubchaser 1264 (Washington: Luce, 1972). 
78 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

USS MASON. Sailors look over their new ship. 

Although both ships continued to operate with black crews well into 1945, 

the Mason on escort duty in the Atlantic, only four other segregated patrol craft 

were added to the fleet during the war. 64 The Mason passed its shakedown cruise 

test, but the Bureau of Naval Personnel was not satisfied with the crew. The 

black petty officers had proved competent in their ratings and interested in their 

work, but bureau observers agreed that the rated men in general were unable to 

maintain discipline. The nonrated men tended to lack respect for the petty officers, who showed some disinclination to put their men on report. The Special 

Programs Unit admitted the truth of these charges but argued that the experiment only proved what the Navy already knew: black sailors did not respond 

well when assigned to all-black organizations under white officers. 6

s On the 

other hand, the experiment demonstrated that the Navy possessed a reservoir of 

able seamen who were not being efficiently employed, and- an unexpected 

dividend from the presence of white noncommissioned officers- that integration worked on board ship. The white petty officers messed, worked, and slept 

with their men in the close contact inevitable aboard small ships, with no sign of 

racial friction. 

64Mcmo. CNO for Cmdr, First and l'ifth Naval Disrrim, 10 May 44, sub: Assignment of Negro Personnel, 

P- 16-3/MM. BuPcrsRccs. 

6SFor an assessment of rhc performance of rhc Mason's crew, see ''SuPers Hist. '' pp. 42-43 and 92. 
WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY 79 

Opportunity for advancement was as important to morale as assignment according to training and skill, and the Special Programs Unit encouraged the promotion of Negroes according to their ability and in proportion to their number. 

Although in July 1943 the Bureau of Naval Personnel had warned commanders 

that it would continue to order white enlisted men to sea with the expectation 

that they would be replaced iin shore jobs by Negroes,66 the Special Programs 

Unit discovered that rating and promotion of Negroes was still slow. At the 

unit's urging, the bureau advised all naval districts that it expected Negroes to 

be rated upward "as rapidly as practicable" and asked them to report on their 

rating of NegroesY It also authorized stations to retain white petty officers for 

up to two weeks to break in their black replacements, but warned that this 

privilege must not be abused. The bureau further directed that all qualified 

general service candidates be advanced to ratings for which they were eligible 

regardless of whether their units were authorized enough spaces to take care of 

them. This last directive did little for black promotions at first because many 

local commanders ruled that no Negroes could be "qualified" since none were 

allowed to perform sea duties. In January 1944 the bureau had to clarify the 

order to make sure that Negroes were given the opportunity to advance.68 

Despite these evidences of command concern, black promotions continued 

to lag in the Navy. Again at the Special Programs Unit's urging, the Bureau of 

Naval Personnel began to limit the number of rated men turned out by the 

black training schools so that more nonrated men already on the job might have 

a better chance to win ratings. The bureau instituted a specialist leadership 

course for rated Negroes at Great Lakes and recommended in January 1944 that 

two Negroes so trained be included in each base company sent out of the country. It also selected twelve Negroes with backgrounds in education and public 

relations and assigned them to recruiting duty around the country. The bureau 

expanded the black petty officer program because it was convinced by the end of 

1943 that the presence of more black leaders, particularly in the large base companies, would improve discipline and raise morale. It was but a short step from 

this conviction to a realization that black commissioned officers were needed. 

Despite its 100,000 enlisted Negroes, the absence of black commissioned officers in the fall of 1943 forced the Navy to answer an increasing number of 

queries from civil rights organizations and Congress. 69 Several times during 

1942 suggestions were made within the Bureau of Naval Personnel that the instructors at the Hampton specialist school and seventy-five other Negroes be 

66BuPers Ltr, P!6-3. 12 Jul 43, sub: The Expanded Use of Negroes. BuPersRccs. 67Ltr, Chief. NavPers, to Cmdts, AJJ Naval Districts, 19 Aug 43. sub: Advancement in Rating re: Negro 

Personnel, P17-2/MM, BuPersRccs. 68BuPcrs Cir Ltr 6-44, 12 Jan 44. 

69News that the Navy bad inadvertently commissioned a black student at Harvard University in the spring 

of 1942 produced the foJJowing reaction in one personnel office: "LtCmdr B ... (Special Activities Branch, 

BuPersJ says this is true due to a slip by the officer who signed up medical students at Harvard. Cmdr. B. says 

this boy has a year to go in medical school and hopes they can get rid of him some how by then. He earnestly 

asks us to be judicious in handling this matter and prefers that nothing be said about it." Quoted in a Note, 

H. M. Harvey toM Me (ca. 20 Jun 42). copy on file in the Dennis D. Nelson CoJJection, San Diego, California. 
Bt1 lN'l'HdRATloN OrTI1H AI<MHD itOI{Cll~, 1~40- %5 

wmtttl~!llbmHJ ~at sNvlt~ wllli ll1c IMUc blatk urtlts, hut twtldJtU lmr,PtHictl. 

S<!tftlHtty K11dx himself thought tftrtt tile Navy would IHtVc ltJ tlcvtlop It totlsldctablt buJy of bla(k sallots bdoh.: ll ttiUld cVcl1 tlilnk about wttth1lsslot1ll1ij 

black t:lffiecl's. 7u 13ut ~lie scttalaty tstilcd to af}J"1tcdal<! tliti tflctt tJt th~ shtcr 

numbt:t u{' bhttk dt~t!tecs t.hflt ovttWI1tdl1 ~d the scl·vlte In the !l H'Ill~ 5! 1~rt3, 

:u~d ht: Hltkot1<!tl withcJUtlhc fcJ~fsuusivc :ugumt?lils ut lils spttlal dssl!lliH1C Ad lai 

StcVcf1§611 .

11 

StctcliHY .Kfiox oflt:Htcfcttccl to Adlai StcVclisUti as 11 Ifly New Dcldch 11 !-Hid, 

il§ th~ cx~tcssloft §UjJgcslcd, Ll1t l1lit1olsldwycr waslti aR cxeclll:IH f}6mJ6ft to It!= l1Yct1t~ the §ctttmuy's thinkift[t. 12 Although HGt §U few:£ul rttt a~V6bHc a~ 

t;hfiw~~hm- SMitt!tit1 ~H!Vc is6fi luHl his tf.llHitlditblt: IH~lli ~tmtc ~11~ €hiUHi to 

thl? §HJ:lJj6tt of flia§c lfi Llie dcjjllrHHciH wha §6U~ n cqUlll f.lJ:lp~tlUftity fot llit! 

Ncjffo. H& wa§ afl iliValuitblc afltllliflucmlal ally fot· tlic S]:leclal 1-'tt>Mfilffi§ Uull. §u~v~tmm kHcW .[{ft6x wt:ll md UtldcrstMcl ht>w Lo apptoath him. He was pat- ticularly etfective in getting Negroes commissioned . In September 1943 he 

pointed out that, with the induction of 12,000 Negroes a month, the demand 

for black officers would be mounting in the black community and in the government as well. The Navy could not and should not, he warned, postpone much 

longer the creation of some black officers. Suspicion of discrimination was one 

reason the Navy was failing to get the best qualified Negroes, and Stevenson 

believed it wise to act quickly. He recommended that the Navy commission ten 

or twelve Negroes from among ''top notch civilians just as we procure white officers'' and a few from the ranks. The commissioning should be treated as a 

matter of course without any special publicity. The news, he added wryly, would 

get out soon enough. 73 

There were in fact three avenues to a Navy commission: the Naval Academy, 

the V-12 program, and direct commission from civilian life or the enlisted ranks. 

But Annapolis had no Negroes enrolled at the time Stevenson spoke, and only a 

dozen Negroes were enrolled in V -12 programs at integrated civilian colleges 

throughout the country. ~ The lack of black students in the V -12 program could 

be attributed in part to the belief of many black trainees that the program barred Negroes. Actually, it never had, and in December 1943 the bureau publicized this fact. It issued a circular letter emphasizing to all commanders that 

enlisted men were entitled to consideration for transfer to the V -12 program 

70Ltr, SecNav to Sen. David I. Walsh (Massachusetts), 21 May 42, 51- 1- 26; sec also idem to Sen. William 

H. Smathers (Florida), 7 Feb 42, Nav- 32-C. Both in GenRecsNav. 711nu:rv, lee Nichols with lester Granger. 1953. in Nichols Collection, CMH. 72Kcnncth S. Davis, The Poltit'cs of Honor: A Bt'ography of Ad/at' E. Slevemon (New York: Putnam, 

1957), p. 146; ltr, A. E. Stevenson to Dennis D. Nelson, 10 Feb 48, Nelson Collection, San Diego. Califor· 

nia. 

73Memo, Stevenson for the Secretary (Knox), 29 Sep 43, 54-1-50. GenRecsNav. 

74The V-12 program was designed to prepare large numbers of educated men for the Navy's Reserve Mid· 

shipmen schools and m increase the war-depleted student bodies of many colleges. The Navy signed on eligi· 

ble students as apprentice seamen and paid their academic expenses. Eventually the V-12 program produced 

some 80,000 officers for the wartime Navy. For an account of the experiences of a black recruit in the V ·12 pro· 

gram, see Carl T. Rowan, "Those Navy Boys Changed My life," Reader's Dt'gesl 72 (January 1958):55-58. 

Rowan, the celebrated columnist and onetime Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, was one 

of the first Negroes to complete the V ·12 program. Another was Samuel Gravely. 
WORLO WAR II: THE NA. VY 61 

Fum· ! J,t\C:K 0l1fl1CilRS IN Tl m NAVY, Pmm /gjl to ri!JIJt: (tQp mw) jalm l.jY, Ruagfm, 

jo.l'lfl W. Arbor, Daltrm L. nausiJ.' (sttoQtlrlrow) Graham It. Marlln, U?, 0. CIJal'lus 

IJ, Ltw, flran~ C. SuiJiou,· (t/n'r€1 row) Pht~llp S. !Jamus, GuOI'f!.U C'oojHJI', Rn11irHtlri 

Goodwlm (btJitom nm) Jamos ll. Hrm, Samuf!l 11. /Jamn.r, H?. S~lvu.rtnr Whito, 

Dunnls [), N(J/sonll. 

resurdless of mee. n Dest)ite this effort it was smm rrpparcm that ~ progmm 

woul"i prQduce only a few blnck offlcc:rs, and che a~~reau of Naval Pcmmnnel, at 

the 1uging of irs Special Programs Unh, agt·eecl m follow SLevenson's suggestion 

and concenmne on the dit·ect commissioning of Negroes. Unlike Stevenson the 

bYI'I.lau p1·e£emnl co obtaln most of che mcm fmm the enlisted ranks, and t}nly in 

the case or certain specially u·ajned men did the Nnvy wmmission clvlllnns. 

The B1.ueau of Nnval Personnel eemdud(?d a~. since many units were subs~amially Ot' wholly Inanned by Negmes, black officers could be used wirhout 

undue difficuhy, and when Sc~ emry I<nox, l}fc:>dcled by Scevenson, mrned w 

HfJuPcr6 Clr J,u 369=·1 l, 1 ~ ,}q~ 4Jl, 
82 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

the bureau, it recommended that the Navy commission twelve line and ten staff 

officers from a selected list of enlisted men. 76 Admiral King endorsed<~ the 

bureau's recommendation and on 15 December 1943 Knox approved it, 

although he conditioned his approval by saying: "After you have commissioned 

the twenty-two officers you suggest, I think this matter should again be reviewed before any additional colored officers are commissioned. '' 77 

On 1 January 1944 the first sixteen black officer candidates, selected from 

among qualified enlisted applicants, entered Great Lakes for segregated training. All sixteen survived the course, but only twelve were commissioned. In the 

last week of the course, three candidates were returned to the ranks, not because 

they had failed but because the Bureau of Naval Personnel had suddenly decided to limit the number of black officers in this first group to twelve. The twelve 

entered the U.S. Naval Reserve as line officers on 17 March. A thirteenth man, 

the only candidate who lacked a college degree, was made a warrant officer 

because of his outstanding work in the course. 

Two of the twelve new ensigns were assigned to the faculty at Hampton 

training school, four others to yard and harbor craft duty, and the rest to training duty at Great Lakes. All carried the label "Deck Officers Limited-only," a 

designation usually reserved for officers whose physical or educational deficiencies kept them from performing all the duties of a line officer. The Bureau of 

Naval Personnel never explained why the men were placed in this category, but 

it was clear that none of them lacked the physical requirements of a line officer 

and all had had business or professional careers in civil life. 

Operating duplicate training facilities for officer candidates was costly, and 

the bureau decided shortly after the first group of black candidates was trained 

that future candidates of both races would be trained together. By early summer 

ten more Negroes, this time civilians with special professional qualifications, 

had been trained with whites and were commissioned as staff officers in the 

Medical, Dental, Chaplain, Civil Engineer, and Supply Corps. These twentytwo men were the first of some sixty Negroes to be commissioned during the 

war. 

Since only a handful of the Negroes in the Navy were officers, the 

preponderance of the race problems concerned relations between black enlisted 

men and their white officers. The problem of selecting the proper officers to 

command black sailors was a formidable one never satisfactorily solved during 

the war. As in the Army, most of the white officers routinely selected for such 

assignments were southerners, chosen by the Bureau of Naval Personnel for their 

assumed "understanding" of Negroes rather than for their general competency. 

The Special Programs Unit tried to work with these officers, assembling them 

for conferences to discuss the best techniques and procedures for dealing with 

groups of black subordinates. Members of the unit sought to disabuse the officers of preconceived biases, constantly reminding them that "our prejudices 

76Memo, SecNav for Chief, NavPcrs, 20 Nov 43. 54-l-50; Memo. Chief. NavPcrs. for SecNav, 2 Dec 43, 

sub: Negro Officers. Borh in GenRccsNav. 77Memo, SccNav for Rear Adm jacobs, 15 Dec 43, quored in ''BuPcrs Hist, '' p. 33. 
WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY 83 

must be subordinated to our traditional unfailing obedience to orders.' '

78 

Although there was ample proof that many Negroes actively resented the paternalism exhibited by many of even the best of these officers, this fact was slow to 

filter through the naval establishment. It was not until January 1944 that an officer who had compiled an enviable record in training Seabee units described 

how his organization had come to see the light: 

We in the Seabees no longer follow the precept that southern officers exclusively should 

be selected for colored battalions. A man may be from the north, south, east or west. If 

his attitude is to do the best possible job he knows how, regardless of what the color of 

his personnel is, that is the man we want as an officer for our colored Seabees. We have 

learned to steer clear of the ''I'm from the South-! know how to handle 'em variety.'' 

It follows with reference to white personnel, that deeply accented southern whites are 

not generally suited for Negro battalions. 7

9 

Further. complicating the task of selecting suitable officers for black units was 

the fact that when the Bureau of Naval Personnel asked unit commanders to 

recommend men for such duty many commanders used the occasion to rid 

themselves of their least desirable officers. The Special Programs Unit then tried 

to develop its own souJce of officers for black units. It discovered a fine reservoir 

of talent among the white noncommissioned officers who ran the physical training and drill courses at Great Lakes. These were excellent instructors, mature 

and experienced in dealing with people. In January 1944 arrangements were 

made to commission them and to assign them to black units. 

Improvement in the quality of officers in black units was especially important because the attitude of local commanders was directly related to the degree 

of segregation in living quarters and recreational facilities, and such segregation 

was the most common source of racial tension. Although the Navy's practice of 

segregating units clearly invited separate living and recreational facilities, the 

rules were unwritten, and local commanders had been left to decide the extent 

to which segregation was necessary. Thus practices varied greatly and policy 

depended ultimately on the local commanders. Rather than attack racial practices at particular bases, the unit decided to concentrate on the officers. It explained to these leaders the Na.vy's policy of equal treatment and opportunity, a 

concept basically incompatible with many of their practices. 

This conclusion was embodied in a pamphlet entitled Guide to the Command of Negro Naval Personnel and published by the Bureau of Naval Personnel in February 1944 .

80 The Special Programs Unit had to overcome much opposition within the bureau to get the pamphlet published. Some thought the 

subject of racial tension was best ignored; others objected to the "sociological" 

content of the work, considering this approach outside the Navy's province. The 

78Quotcd in Record of "Conference With Regard to Negro Personnel," held at Hq, Fifth Naval District. 

26 Oct 43. lncl to Ltr, Chief, NavPcrs, to All Sea Frontier Cmds et al., 5 Jan 44, sub: Negro Personnel-Con· 

fidential Report of Conference With Regard to the Handling of. Pcrs 1013, BuPers Recs. The grotesque racial 

attitudes of some commanders, as well as rhe thoughtful questions and difficult experiences of others, were 

fully aired at this conference. 

79fbid . 80NavPcrs 15092. 12 Feb44. 
lN'I'IJGllATlON OflTHR t\RMRD FORCBS, 1~40 ~6~ 

~wit llf&Ycd ~hat mdal t~n§lgn In the Navy waB ao~riQI-16 probkm thar (:tmld not 

be i~ orcd, and 61tH ~ humnn rcla~lon5 Rff~c~~d ~he Navy'o miRsion the Navy 

shoYid deal wl~h o@elal mancr6 objcc~lvc y and frankly."' 

Schglarly Rod objcctlvc, the pnmphl~t was an lm ~OrHlnt document In the 

hlBmry of mcc rehutoosln th( Navy, Jn lan8YII:I'Jtl 3imlltu• to that bl~ed in the Wa1· Ocpnt·tmem'o pllmphlct on l'Rce, the BYI'CilY of Naval Persoon~l stat~d offida ll~ 

for the rs~ tlm~ that dlacdmlnntlon fle>wcd gf ncceoHity out pf thc d(:)cuin~ of 

scgrcgRtion: 

The Idem of- comp_YIBory mdnlll<:flf<li:Jntlon Is dlollk~d by almost nil NcfiCOC!§/ and llrClrolly hntcd by mnny. 'fhl6 nrunjlonl~m 16 In part a rc5Yit flf fhe fncf fhiH 1\5 o pr oclpiCl hem· bodies n doctrine of r!ldal inferiority. h In also a rc&Yit of the cs~gn myght thcfNegro by axP.crhme<l that in aplta gf thCl leanl formYIIl of "6cp11rRfCl bm ClQYIII" flldllti<ls, the 

fnclllrle8 open m him under seare&nrlon art ln fact munlly Inferior ns to locatllm gr {llH\II[y m thoae avllilnblc to mher11. 

The gul~ealse fo ca adowe~ the end eJf th~ old ordef uf ~hlogR: ''The Nuvy ne· 

eepts no theories of rne.lnl (llffe•·ences In inborn ablllty, tn1t expects ~hat evet•y 

mnn wenrlng ita unifgrm be mtined Rml used in aeeol'dnnee wlch his maximum 

lndlvidnal eapaehy determined on the basis t:)f incllvldmll pct·formance.'' 8l 

l'arrfJ.rlal Tn~os tho Holm 

The Navy got a leader sympathetic to the proposidon of cqm\1 treatment anc:l 

oppormnity for Negroes, and possessed Qf the buren~-tcratlc sklll ~ to nehieve 

reforms, when President RQosevc:l~ uppoimed Undel' Secretary James Forrestal to 

replnce Fra.nk Knox, who died suddenly on 28 AprH 1944. Dmin!J the nexe five 

years Fom:stal, a brl!Jlam, eomplcx product of Wall Sucet, p~:~ ld assYme more 

and mol'e t·esponslbillty for dlrccdng the lntegmdon cHon in the def~me 

c:smbllshmene. Although no mclul cmsad~r. Jlgnestal hn'l been fen many ye11rs a 

member of the Nadonru Urban !,eague, itself a pllla•· of the civill'ights establish· 

mcne. He saw the problem of employing Negroes as one of efficiency and simple 

fair pl11y, and as the months went by he assumed an active role in experimenting 

with changes in the Navy's poHcy.84 

His first experiment was with sen dYty for Negt•ocs. Afrer the experience of ~he Ma.ron and the other segt·egRted ships whieh nemnlly proved very litde, Ren· timcmt for a partial integmtlc:>n Qf the fleet eomirmed to grow in the Burca1:1 of 

Naval PersonneL As early as Aprll 1943, off.icer11 in the Planning nncl Control 

Activity recommended chat Negmes be Included in small n11mbers in ~he crews 

of the huget' combut ships. Admiral ]ncob11, lwwcver, was convinced that "ygu 

couldn't dump 200 colored boys on a ct·ew in battle, "6, so this and similar pro· 

posalslatcr in the year never n1rvived passage through che burenu. 

81"[luJlcrs Jolin," pt. II, pp. l. 

81Navflora U092, 12 flcb4d, p. 10. un>ld.oJl. 1. 

Msao Columi:Jlll Unlvorsltr Oral II In lntorv with Ornn!Jtr; USt\fl Oral lllswry llrgamm, lm~rvlgw with 

)Am OJ C. llvRn8, 24 Apr 7 l, 

o,lmorv, Leo Nichols wlrh Vlco i\dm RRndRII )m.Jiu, 29 M11r H, In NIPholfi C!nllmlon, CMii. 
WORLD WAR II: THH NAVY 

Forr~atal n~ta ptcd Ja(;t~b'B aJt,JYffHmt thM fl5 hmg !lH th~ war contiflu~d any mov~ mwArd Jm~grtldng th~ rlfJhdntJ ship§ wM lmprni;tl~al. A~ th~ aam~ time, h~ a~rc~d wl~h th~ Spedal Pl'O(Jrama Unit th{l~ lara" c:onnmmulflna gf N~/lf9~s 

In 6hor(l dml~~ lowered etfkicmc;y and mon\l(l, ~grrrma l Ct:Jffil:}romla(ld by ord~r· 

lng the burcmY re prCfHUC llH an cxpt;t•lmcm a plan for the lnt~gration @f at:~m~ 

f!(let auxlHary ships. On ~0 May 1~44 hl:l t> Ytlln~cl th~ probl(lm for the PreBldc:m: 

''From a mora ~ atandp(;}iflt, dw NegnJ~B resent the fa~t that ~hey an: not fill• 

signed to a~net·al Bcrvlec bJIIcn~ IH sea, and whi~c tJCfll@l'lnel reaem r:h® fact thac 

Negroes have been given leaa hazarcltnls as3lgnmcms.'' I"Ie ~Kp ninecl that fH f:lrot 

Negroes would be used only on the hu·ge aYxiliaries, nod ~heir number woulcll~e 

limited to n@t mt>re than 10 p~rc~m t:Jf the ship's complemem. If this stC}} 

prov~d wt:Jt'kable, h~ planned to use Negroes In small m1m bers on othc.ll' t¥DCS of 

ships "as necessity indicates." The White Ht;nwc aflswct·ed: ''Ol<, fiOR."R6 

Seet·ernry flonescal also won the 11~1ppon {)f rhe Chief of N11val OperatltH1S for 

the move, but Admiral Kinu still eonsldcm~d integration in the fJeet expel'imen· tal and was d~termlned to keep mlct ecmtrtlltuuil the results were !mown. On 9 

August 1944 Klog informed the eomm;mdlnlf gfflcers e>f tweney.five hll'ge fleet 

suxilltuh:s that Negroes would be nsslgned to them In the m~ar f1ttme. As For· ~sta l had SYgges ~d, King 11et the maximum nYmbet• of Negroc:s lH 10 pt:l'Cem 

of the ship's !~nera l servlee. Of this number, B pcm:ent would be ch1rd·ehl9B 

petty offieers from 11hore aetlvi~l cs, sclcw:cl as far as possiblcdr@m v©l~mteet·s 

ami, In nny ense, frgm tho~c who had served the; longest pCJdod~ of shore dlJty, 

Of the remainder, 43 pet·eem woYld be from ClasB A schools and 42 percent 

fram recruit training. The botlic 10 percent £ig~:~re ~}l'twed ttl l}e 11 ~heoretical 

mmdmum; no ship received thm many Negt·oeo. 

Admiml King insim:d a~ equal tnlatmcmt ln mfmer6 of training, promo· don, and duty assianmcms must be accorded all ands~ l:nn he left the matter of 

berthing to the commanding crffieers, nodng that experience had [}1'0VC{l that ln 

the shore C3tab lishmem~ when the percentage ef blacks to whhes was smnll. the 

two groYps could be sucees~f~-tlly mingled In the same compartments. He also 

poinced om that a thorough indoctrln~Itjon of white sailors before t.hc anival of 

the Negroes had been useful in preventing nu::it\1 ft·iction t~6hore. 07 

l{ing asked all commandet·s concerned in the experiment eo report their ex· 

pericnees. 08 Theil' judgment: iftUJgration h1 the auxillary fleet wot·kccl. As OM 

typlcal repon related after severn! months of integrated duty: 

The crew wn11 CRl'efully indoctrinated Jn the fact that Negro ~ert~onne h,mld not be aub· jectecl to cli6crlm1nndon or any sore nnd should be trenceclln ~he same manner llS other 

members of the crew. 

The Negr() personflcl when ~hey came nbonrd were: bcmhed lndlB~rlmlnnully 

throuahout the ercw'B compartm~mB In the s11.mc manner as if ~hey hnd bee,, white. It 15 

feh tfint the ll6Hlmlhu1ofl of the gcmeral 'service N(lgro persgnnel nbgrml this ship hall 

66Me~mo, Sa~Nnv for flr-otildcmt, ao Mny ~4. fll'lffllitl\1 fllll. OllnRll~6NIIY. 6

7t,lr, CNO rl'l CO, IJSS AtWtellt ur nl.,,? Aug44, 6ttl~: Nagro lln ll st~d Ptmtlllnai= Aillilflnmtmt qf m Shit~§ gf lhfl Illalll, fl16=~ IMM, OpNnvAr~hlvll§, 

68tdam l6 Cmdr, Antaouf llt nL, g Jnn 4~. PI~ ~. OpNnvJ\rehlvQ§, 
86 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

been remarkably successful. To the present date there has been no report of any difficulty which could be laid to their color. It is felt that this is due in part, at least, to the 

high calibre of Negroes assigned to this ship. 89 

The comments of his commanders convinced King that the auxiliary vessels 

in the fleet could be integrated without incident. He approved a plan submitted 

by the Chief of Naval Personnel on 6 March 1945 for the gradual assignment of 

Negroes to all auxiliary vessels, again in numbers not to exceed 10 percent of the 

general service billets in any ship's complement.90 A month later Negroes were 

being so assigned in an administratively routine manner.91 The Bureau of Naval 

Personnel then began assigning black officers to sea duty on the integrated 

vessels. The first one went co the Mason in March, and in succeeding months 

others were sent in a routine manner to auxiliary vessels throughout the fleet. 92 

These assignments were not always carried out according to the bureau's formula. The commander of the USS Chemung, for example, told a young black 

enstgn: 

I'm a Navy Man, and we're in a war. To me, it's that stripe that counts- and the training and leadership that it is supposed to symbolize. That's why I never called a meeting 

of the crew to prepare them, to explain their obligation to respect you, or anything like 

thar. 1 didn't want anyone to think you were different from any other officer coming 

aboard.93 

Admitting Negroes to the WAVES was another matter considered by the 

new secretary in his first days in office. In fact, the subject had been under 

discussion in the Navy Department for some two years. Soon after the organization of the women's auxiliary, its director, Capt. Mildred H. McAfee, had 

recommended that Negroes be accepted, arguing that their recruitment would 

help to temper the widespread criticism of the Navy's restrictive racial policy. 

But the traditionalists in the Bureau of Naval Personnel had opposed the move 

on the grounds that WAVES were organized to replace men, and since there 

were more than enough black sailors to fill all billets open to Negroes there was 

no need to recruit black women. 

Actually, both arguments served to mask other motives, as did Knox's rejection of recruitment on the grounds chat integrating women into the Navy was 

S?trr. CO. US$ A111ae11J, to Chief. NavPers. 16 Jan 45, sub: Negro Enlisted Personnel- Assignment of to 

Ships of the Fleet, Ag67/Pt6- 3/MM; see also Memo. Cmdr D. Armstrong for ComScrForPac. 29 Dec 44. 

sub: Negro Enlisted Personnel (General Service Ratings) Assignment of m Ships of the Fleet; Ltr, ComScr· 

ForPac to Chief, NavPers. 2 Jan 45. with CINCJ>ac&POA end thereto. same sub; Ltrs tO Chief, NavPers, from 

CO, USS u~ramie. 17 Jan 45. USS Mall ole, 19 Jan 4 5, with ComScrForLant end, and US$ Ariel. l Feb 45. All 

Incl to Memo. Chief, NavPcrs. for CINCUSFLEET, 6 Mar 45. sub: Negro Personnel-Expanded Usc of, Pers 

2119 FB. All in OpNavArchivcs. 90Memo. Chief. NavPcrs, for CINCUSFLEET, 6 Mar 45, sub: Negro Personnel-Expanded Usc of. with 

1st Ind. from Fleet Adm, USN. for Vice CNO. 28 Mar 45, same sub, FFI/P16-3/MM. OpNavArchives. 9 t BuPcrs Cir Ltr 105-4 5. 13 Apr 45, sub: Negro General-Service Personnel, Assignment of m Auxiliary 

V csscls of chc Fleet. 92Lcr, Chief, N:tvPers, co CO. USS Mason. 16 Mar 45. sub: Negro Officer-Assignment of, Pcrs 2119-FB; 

sec also idem to CO. USS Kn111eah. 16 Jul 45. sub: Negro Officer- Assignment of tO Auxiliary Vessel of the 

Fleet. AO 15/P16-I; idem to CO, US$ Laramie. 21 Aug 45, same sub. AO t6/PJ6-J. All in OpNav· 

Archives. 93Quoted in Rowan. "Those Navy Boys Changed My Life." pp. 57-~8. 
WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY 87 

difficult enough without taking on the race problem.94 In April 1943 Knox 

"tentatively" approved the "tentative" outline of a bureau plan for the induction of up to 5,000 black WAVES, but nothing came of it.95 Given the 

secretary's frequent protestation that the subject was under constant review, 96 

and his statement to Captain McAfee that black WAVES would be enlisted 

"over his dead body, " 97 the tentative outline and approval seems to have been 

an attempt to defer the decision indefinitely. 

Secretary Knox's delay merely attracted more attention to the problem and 

enabled the protestors to enlist powerful allies. At the time of his death, Knox 

was under siege by a delegation from the Congress of Industrial Organizations 

(CIO) demanding a reassessment of the Navy's policy on the women's reserve.98 

His successor turned for advice to Captain McAfee and to the Bureau of Naval 

Personnel where, despite Knox's "positive and direct orders" against recruiting 

black WAVES, the Special Programs Unit had continued to study the 

problem.99 Convinced that the step was just and inevitable, the unit also agreed 

that theW AVES should be integrated. Forrestal approved, and on 28 July 1944 

he recommended to the President that Negroes be trained in the WAVES on an 

integrated basis and assigned ''wherever needed within the continental limits of 

the United States, preferably to stations where there are already Negro men.'' 

He concluded by reiterating a Special Programs Unit warning: "I consider it advisable to start obtaining Negro WAVES before we are forced co take them." 100 

To avoid the shoals of racial controversy in the midst of an election year, 

Secretary Forrestal did trim his recommendations to the extent that he retained 

the doctrine of separate but equal living quarters and mess facilities for the black 

WAVES. Despite this offer of compromise, President Roosevelt directed Forrestal to withhold action on the proposal. 101 Here the matter would probably 

have stood until after the election but for Thomas E. Dewey's charge in a 

Chicago speech during the presidential campaign that the White House was 

discriminating against black women. The President quickly instructed the Navy 

to admit Negroes into the WAVES. 102 

The first two black WAVE officers graduated from training at Smith College on 21 December, and the enlistment of black women began a week later. 

The program turned out to be more racially progressive than initially outlined 

by. Forrestal. He had explained to the President that the women would be 

9~Ltr, Mildred M. Horton tO author. 14 Mar 75. CMH files. 

?)Memo, Chief, NavPcrs. for SccNav, 27 Apr43, Pcrs 17M D. BuPersRccs. Memo. SccNav for Adm Jacobs, 

29 A£r43, 54- 1- 43. GcnRccsNav. 

9 Sec. for example, Ltr, SecNav to Algernon D. Black, City· Wide Citizen's Cmre on Harlem, 23 Apr 43, 

54- 1- 43. GenRecsNav. 

??Quoted in Ltr, Horton ro author, 14 Mar 75. 

98Mcmo, Ra lph Bard for Forrcstal, 4 May 44. sub: Navy Policy on Recruitment of Negro Females as 

WAVES; Ltr. Nathan Cowan. CIO. tO Forrcstal. 20 May44, 54- 1- l. Both in GcnRccsNav. 

99Mcrno, J. V. F. (Forrcstal} for Adm Dcnfeld (ca. 7 Jun 44); Memo, Capt Mildred McAfee for Adm 

Dcnfeld, 7 Jun 44; both in 54- 1-4, GcnRecsNav. Sec also Memo, Chief, NavPcrs. for SccNav, II May 44, 

sub: Navy Policy on Recruitment of Negro Females as WAVES, Pcrs 17, GcnRccsNav. 100Mcmo, Forrcstal for President, 28 Jul44, 54-1-4, GcnRecsNav. 101Mcmo. Lr Cmdr John Tyree (White House aide) for Forresral, 9 Aug 44. 54- 1- 4, GcnRecsNav. 

I02Navy Dept Press Release. 19 Ocr 44. 
qYIH ~(lJ'qg H~fHt''flt~ly, "' provl~fgn Inter· pr~ted in ~he JJur~au qf NllvRI Pt!fr!tlnne.l ~o mean that black f(lCrYJt~ would be @rganlz~d into H~PiU'~ttc compantos. 

Since a rcw.J.it company mH'Pb~t·cd 250 

women, and Binc:c.lt quickly b~~ame P.P• l;liU<lflt 'thn~ Buc.h a huge grOYJt tlf black 

volumeers W{;)uld not socm be fonhcom· lng, llOirr<l af the b~Heau ~trtff "leeldcd 

that th~ Navy would condnue m bar 

bhu:k women. ln this th ~y f<ldton~d 

wlth('}m Cllptaln Mc;ACee who lnsi:Jted 

on n pcr6onal ni!J ng by fi(nreBtal. She 

WllfllCt=l the BtCI'~tfU'Y that hill {;)fdell' WRII 

neeeHSIUY becau11e th~ conccmt ''wus 110 

mange w Navy ~1·ae ee .'' 10r He agreed 

wlth lwr that the Negroes would be ln" 

tegmted along with the r~Bt of the In· eomltl{I l'eemlts, and the. Bure1n1 of 

No. val Personnel subaequen cly cmlerccl 

that the WAVES be ttSillmillnted 

withcn-a making ~ll er speeinl or 

sepurnte arrnngemcnt.'l. 1M 

Lmu·rgNt .. N'l' PICKflNR AND llNSIGN 

Wir.l.~ . flir.rt blae/4 IIY 11 VII tJ//t'aors, 

mflmbtm of thfl /btnl orndttatinc aku,r 

r1t N(lval Rtmrt'li Mlrl.rl.lljmum 's 

Sa!JofJi (TWR), Nf/rt/Jh(lif~jJt(Jn, By Mrmno!JiUtJU.r. July !945 the Navy h(ld trai!le.d s~vcmy• I:WQ blaek WAVES ar. Hutwn· College Naval ':I'ralnlna School ln n fully ln~cgrnted and ''oudne mnnnf!r. 

Although black WAVES were remlcwd ~om~who.t. ln stwdnlty A~slgnrnents and 

u ccttain umgunt of scpann~ quancrinn whhin imegmtcd bfl'Tacks prevailed at 

some dblty sc~tdons, che Spcclal Program~ Unit cnm(! co considtir th(l WAVE pro· gmm, which cstabllshcd a fQ·rccful pt·cccdcm for e imcgn1tion of ma ~ recruit 

training, lts most jmportam wanlme brealuht·oughl cl·editlng Captain McAfee 

and het· uftbcndlng lnslsccnce on equal mmnncm fol' the achlcvcmcot. 

Forrcstal won the dny in these early cxperlmcms, but he was a sldUfuJ ad· 

minlmator and knew that there was Ucde hope for any £unda.mcmal 50cial 

change ln the naval service withom the aeclve cgopcration of the Navy's high· nwking offlcet·s. His meering with Admlml King on the: subjeet of integnuion in 

the s1~mmer of l 944 has been rc:poreed by several people. Lcstet· Gt·tmgcr~ who 

later became Foneseal'6 spccinlt·epreseocative on raclnl marcer~~ recnlled : 

He [llorrcstnl] Bold hc: spoke ct'l Admln.t.l King I whg woa rhen ehlef of lltnff, ond snlu I 

.. Aclmli'I\II<Jng, I'm not satl3fled with rhe sltulltlon crc I clen't thlnk tlutt our Navy Negro pe!'lionocd are btln~ n squnre brenk. ! wam to clo 11ome~hing nbt)mlt, h~n 1 c11n'r 

do anything !lbour it unlcos the offlcer6 arc ~ehind me. J' wane yow' help. Whtu do ypu Sl\y?" 
WoHLb WAI{ H; nltl NAVY 99 

SAILORS IN TIIH GI:lNURAL SllRVICE MOVE AMMUNITION 

He said that Admiral King sat for a moment, and looked out the window and then 

said reflectively, "You know, we say that we are a democracy and a democracy ought to 

have a democratic Navy. I don't think you can do it, but if you want to try, I'm behind 

you all the war. II And he told me, "And Admiral King was behind me, all the way, not 

only he but al of the Bureau of Personnel, BuPers. They've been bricks.'' tos 

Admiral Jacobs, the Chief of Naval Personnel, also pledged his support. 106 

As news of the King-Forrestal conversation filtered through the department, 

many of the programs long suggested by the Special Programs Unit and 

heretofore treated with indifference or disapproval suddenly received respectful 

attention. 107 With the high-ranking officers cooperating, the Navy under Forrestal began to attack some of the more obvious forms of discrimination and 

causes of racial tension. Admiral King led the attack, personally directing in 

August 1944 that all elements give close attention to the proper selection of officers to command black sailors. As he put it: "Certain officers will be 

temperamentally better suited for such commands than others.' '

108 The 10SQuoted in the Columbia University Oral History Interview with Granger. Granger's incorrect reference 

to Admiral King as "chief of staff" is interesting because it illustrates the continuing evolution of that office 

durina World War II. 10l'ijames V. Forrestal, "Remarks for Dinner Meeting at National Urban League," 12 Feb 58. Box 31. Mise 

file, Forrestal Papers, Princeton Library. Forrestal's truncated version of the King meeting agreed substantially 

with Granger's lengthier remembrance. 107Imervs. Lee Nichols with Adm Louis E. Denfeld (Deputy Chief of Naval Personnel, later CNO) and 

with Cmdr Charles Dillon (formerly of SuPers Special Unit), 1953; both in Nichols Collection. CMH. 108ALNAY. 7 Aug 44, quoted in Nelson, "Integration oft he Negro," p. 46. 
90 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940- 1965 

SECURITY WATCH IN THE MARIANAS. Ratings of these men guarding an ammunition depot include boatswain, second class, seaman, first class, and fireman, first 

class. 

qualifications of these offi<:ers were to be kept under constant review. In 

December he singled out the commands in the Pacific area, which had a heavy 

concentration of all-black base companies, calling for a reform in their employment and advancement of Negroes. 109 

The Bureau of Naval Personnel also stepped up the tempo of its reforms. In 

March 1944 it had already made black cooks and bakers eligible for duty in all 

commissary branches of the Navy. 110 In June it got Forrestal's approval for putting all rated cooks and stewards in chief petty officer uniforms. 111 (While providing finally for the proper uniforming of the chief cooks and stewards, this 

reform set their subordinates, the rated cooks and stewards, even further apart 

from their counterparts in the general service who of course continued to wear 

the familiar bell bottoms.) The bureau also began to attack the concentration of 

Negroes in ammunition depots and base companies. On 21 February 1945 it 

ordered that all naval magazines and ammunition depots in the United States 

and, wherever practical, overseas limit their black seamen to 30 percent of the 

109Dir, CNO, to Forward Areas, Dec 44, quoted in Nelson's "Integration of the Negro," p. 51. 110BuPers Cir Ltr 72-44, 13 Mar 44, sub: Negro Personnel of the Commissary Branch, Assignment to 

Out~ of. 11 Idem, 182- 44, 29 jun 44, "Uniform for Chief Cooks and Chief Stewards and Cooks and Stewards." 
WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY 91 

total employed. 112 It also organized twenty logistic support companies to replace 

the formless base companies sent to the Pacific in the early months of the 

recruitment program. Organized to perform supply functions, each company 

consisted of 250 enlisted men and five officers, with a flexible range of petty officer billets. 

In the reform atmosphere slowly permeating the Bureau of Naval Personnel, 

the Special Programs Unit found it relatively easy to end segregation in the 

specialist training program. 113 From the first, the number of Negroes eligible for 

specialist training had been too small to make costly duplication of equipment 

and services practical. In 1943, for example, the black aviation metalsmith 

school at Great Lakes had an average enrollment of eight students. The school 

was quietly closed and its students integrated with white students. Thus, when 

the Mason's complement was assembled in early 1944, Negroes were put into 

the destroyer school at Norfolk side by side with whites, and the black and white 

petty officers were quartered together. As a natural consequence of the decision 

to place Negroes in the auxiliary fleet, the Bureau of Naval Personnel opened 

training in seagoing rates to Negroes on an integrated basis. Citing the practicality of the move, the bureau closed the last of the black schools in June 

1945.' ~ 

Despite these reforms, the months following Forrestal' s talk with King saw 

many important recommendations of the Special Programs Unit wandering 

uncertainly through the bureaucratic desert. For example, a proposal to make 

the logistic support companies interracial, or at least to create comparable white 

companies to remove the stigma of segregated manual labor, failed to survive 

the objections of the enlisted personnel section. The Bureau of Naval Personnel 

rejected a suggestion that Negroes be assigned to repair units on board ships and 

to LST's, LCI's, and LCT's during the expansion of the amphibious program. 

On 30 August 1944 Admiral King rejected a bureau recommendation that the 

crews of net tenders and mine ships be integrated. He reasoned that these vessels 

were being kept in readiness for overseas assignment and required "the highest 

degree of experienced seamanship and precision work'' by the crews. He also 

cited the crowded living quarters and less experienced officers as further reasons 

for banning Negroes. 115 

There were other examples of backsliding in the Navy's racial practices. Use 

of Negroes in general service had created a shortage of messmen, and in August 

1944 the Bureau of Naval Personnel authorized commanders to recruit among 

black seamen for men to transfer to the Steward's Branch. The bureau suggested 

112ldem. 4~·18, 21 Feb 4~. and 4~·46, 31 May 4~. sub: Negro Enlisted Personnel-Limitation on Assign· 

ment of to Naval Ammunition Depots and Naval Magazines. 113There is some indication that integration was already going on unofficially in some specialist schools; 

sec Ltr, Dr. M.A. F. Ritchie to James C. Evans. 13 Aug 6~. CMH files. 114BuPers Cir Ltr 194-44, sub: Advanced Schools. Nondiscrimination in Selection of Personnel for Train· 

ing in; Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to CO, AdComd. NavTraCcn. 12 Jun 45. sub: Selection of Negro Personnel for 

Instruction in Class" A" Schools. ~4-1-21, GenRecsNav. 

ll5Mcmo, CNO for Chief, NavPers, 30 Aug 44, sub: Negro Personnel- Assignment to ANs and YMs, 

P13-/MM, BuPersRecs. 
lt§ !l tlllklng fjOJtll tht! titH th!H §ttlW!lfcl§ ~t1 6Yt!tl ltlOftl rapid tltl tl li t~ft1dt1t, 

§hOHt!f hemt§, alit! t!!t§ltn WtHk th~m mtm 1H tht! ~tllitlHd §t!rvl€tt, 116 Artt:L ll= 

lustrrtfhlg rhaf u mtJv~ t€lw~td iHtt:QHttitm wtt§ §(jJ'I1ctlm@§ f~li 6Wt!tl by li ~fj 

batkwilfel, tt butci\U fept~s~nhtdvtJ tt)ptiHUd lH July 194' rhru whttM§ ii few 

bhlck tmlH~e§ dt ll1t: l3aiHbtlclgc Nil val TraiHiH~t Ctllittf hii€1 ~Nm ltitcgtawel iH 

the tnm, fflafly How ll.tfiving Wch~ s~gtugatti!cl iH illl-bliu:k tOfft!1llflie§, 11 j 

'fh~f~ w~ftl ttJa~oH§ fijf the iHttnisl§tt!H~ §fa Hell lH Washiflgt6fl, '1 !! 3~€ l 

Pt@l§.faffi§ \Jfll€ had f6f §6fftt! tlmt! b@tm €6fivlneccl that finly full lfHttgfatitlH wtl~:t d tdimltuw cll§€l'imiflatl<=Jt'i RHd cli§§<=Jlvf! ntehtl tuH§ltJH§ In the N!lvy, !lucl it 

had uH€l~f§ttJ6ellitJff~§ta ' § cl@§il-t! 11 w clo §em~t hlft g'' for th<! N~gf6 ttl ttHlftH J §~ 

dut: §6mt! §tmiof tamm!lnd~ § ~uid th6if e~ll@alfllt!§ in fhc ~uf~ilu tlt Naval Pet= §6HH~ , 6ft the 6tht!f h1md1 whil£? ilct~PHH!J tht Hcccl fat tef@tffi aftrl VJilllHlf w 

attcfj£ §E>ffi.E hltHtllflHting, fleVcHlwlc§§ e€tecl aHY §Ub§Ht.Htial tulj~ ln th@ 

J?tilicy 6f testdctcd dfiploylfiefit 6f N~~t~es 6£1 the ~ttjUftd§ that it ff!ltJHt di§tUpt 

the wartime fleet. Both sides could argue with assurance since liorrestal and 

King had not made their positions completely clear. Whatever the secretary's 

ultimate intention, the reforms carried out in 1944 were too little and too late. 

Perhaps nothing would have been sufficient, for the racial incidents visited 

upon the Navy during the last year of the war were symptomatic of the overwhelming dissatisfaction Negroes felt with their lot in the armed forces. There 

had been incidents during the Knox period, but investigation had failed to 

isolate any ''single, simple cause,'' and troubles continued to occur during 

1944.118 

Three of these incidents gained national prominence. 119 The first was a 

mutiny at Mare Island, California, after an explosion destroyed two ammunition 

ships loading at nearby Port Chicago on 17 July 1944. The explosion killed over 

300 persons, including 250 black seamen who had toiled in large, segregated 

labor battalions. The survivors refused to return to work, and fifty of them were 

convicted of mutiny and sentenced to prison. The incident became a cause 

celebre. Finally, through the intervention of the black press and black organizations and the efforts of Thurgood Marshall and Lester Granger, the convictions 

were set aside and the men restored to active duty. A riot on Guam in December 1944 was the climax of months of friction between black seamen and white marines. A series of shootings in and around the 

town of Agana on Christmas Eve left a black and a white marine dead . Believing 

one of the killed a member of their group, black sailors from the Naval Supply 

Depot drove into town to confront the outnumbered military police. No 

violence ensued, but the next day two truckloads of armed Negroes went to the 

white Marine camp. A riot followed and forty-three Negroes were arrested, 

charged with rioting and theft of the trucks, and sentenced to up to four years in 

116BuPers Cir Ltr 227-44, 12 Aug 44, sub: Steward's Branch, Procurement of From General-Service Ne~roes . 17Memo, Lt William H. Robenson, Jr .. for Rear Adm William M. Fechteler, Asst Chief, NavPers, 20 Jul 

45, sub: Conditions Existing at NTC, Bainbridge, Md., Regarding Negro Personnel. Reported on by Lt Wm 

H. Robenson, Jr., Pers-2119-FB, BuPersRecs. 118"BuPersHist," p. n. 119Netson, ''lnt< gration of the Negro,'' ch. VIII. 
WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY 93 

SPECIALISTS REPAIR AIRCRAFT. Naval Air Station, Seattle, WashinRton, 1945. 

prison. The authorities also recommended that several of the white marines .involved be court-martialed. These men too were convicted of various offenses and 

sentenced. 120 Walter White went to Guam to investigate the matter and appeared as a principal witness before the Marine Court of Inquiry. There he 

pieced together for officials the long history of discrimination suffered by men 

of the base company. This situation, combined with poor leadership in the unit, 

he believed, caused the trouble. His efforts and those of other civil rights advocates led to the release of the black sailors in early 1946. 121 

A hunger strike developed as a protest against discrimination in a Seabee 

battalion at Port Hueneme, California, in March 1945. There was no violence. 

The thousand strikers continued to work but refused to eat for two days. The 

resulting publicity forced the Navy to investigate the charges; as a result, the 

commanding officer, the focus of the grievance, was replaced and the outfit sent 

overseas. 

The riots, mutinies, and other incidents increased the pressure for further 

modifications of policy. Some senior officers became convinced that the only 120Henry I. Shaw, Jr., and Ralph W. Donnelly, Bla•ks in the Marine Corps (Washington: Government 

Printing Office. 1975), pp. 44-45. 121White's testimony before the Court of Inquiry was attached to a report by Maj Gcn Henry L. Larsen to 

CMC (ca. 22 Jan 45). Ser. No. 04275. copy in CMH. 
94 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

way to avoid mass rebellion was-to avert the possibility of collective action, and 

collective action was less likely if Negroes were dispersed among whites. As Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet and an eloquent proponent of the theory that integration was a practical means of avoiding trouble, 

explained to the captain of an attack cargo ship who had just received a group of 

black crewmen and was segregating their sleeping quarters: "If you put all the 

Negroes together they'll have a chance to share grievances and to plot among 

themselves, and this will damage discipline and morale. If they are distributed 

among other members of the crew, there will be less chance of trouble. And 

when we say we want integration, we mean integration. ''122 Thus integration 

grew out of both idealism and realism. 

If racial incidents convinced the admirals that further reforms were 

necessary, they also seem to have strengthened Forrestal's resolve to introduce a 

still greater change in his department's policy. For months he had listened to 

the arguments of senior officials and naval experts that integration of the fleet, 

though desirable, was impossible during the war. Yet Forrestal had seen integration work on the small patrol craft, on fleet auxiliaries, and in the WAVES. In 

fact, integration was working smoothly wherever it had been tried. Although 

hard to substantiate, the evidence suggests that it was in the weeks after the 

Guam incident that the secretary and Admiral King agreed on a policy of total 

integration in the general service. The change would be gradual, but the progress would be evident and the end assured-Negroes were going to be assigned 

as individuals to all branches and billets in the general service. 123 

Forrestal and King received no end of advice. In December 1944 a group of 

black publicists called upon the secretary to appoint a civilian aide to consider 

the problems of the Negro in the Navy. The group also added its voice to those 

within the Navy who were suggesting the appointment of a black public relations officer to disseminate news of particular interest to the black press and to 

improve the Navy's relations with the black community. 

124 One of Forrestal's 

assistants proposed that an intradepartmental committee be organized to standardize the disparate approaches to racial problems throughout the naval 

establishment; another recommended the appointment of a black civilian to advise the Bureau of Naval Personnel; and still another recommended a white 

assistant on racial affairs in the office of the under secretary. m 

These ideas had merit. The Special Programs Unit had for some time been 

urging a public relations effort, pointing to the existence of an influential black 122As quoted in White, A Man Called White, p. 273. For a variation on this theme, see Imerv, Nichols 

with Hillenkoetter. 

l2)Ltr, Rear Adm Hillenkoetter to Nichols, 22 May 53; see also lntervs, Nichols with Granger, Hillenkoet· 

ter, jacobs, Thomas Darden, Dillon, and other BuPers officials. In contrast to the Knox period, where the flies arc replete with Secretary of the Navy memos, BuPers letters, and General Board repons on the development 

of the Navy's racial policy, there is scant documentation on the same subject during the early months of the 

Forrestal administration. This is understandable because the subject of integration was extremely delicate and 

not readily susceptible to the usual staffing needed for most policy decisions. Furthermore, Forrestal's laconic 

manner of expressing himself, famous in bureaucratic Washington, inhibited the usual flow of letters and memos. 124Ltr, John H. Sengstacke to Forrestal, 19 Dec 44, 54-1-9, GenRecsNav; Imerv, Nichols with Granger. 12)Memo, Under Sec Bard for SecNav, 1 Jan 45: Memo, H. Struve Hensel (Off of Gcn Counsel) for Forrestal, 5 Jan 45: both in 54-1-9, Porrestal file, GenRecsNav. 
WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY 95 

press as well as to the desirability of fostering among whites a greater knowledge 

of the role of Negroes in the war. Forrestal brought two black officers to 

Washington for possible assignment to public relations work, and he asked the 

director of public relations to arrange for black newsmen to visit vessels manned 

by black crewmen. Finally, in June 1945, a black officer was added to the staff of 

the Navy's Office of Public Relations. 126 

Appointment of a civilian aide on racial affairs was under consideration for 

some time, but when no agreement could be reached on where best to assign the 

official, Forrestal, who wanted someone he could "casually talk to about race 

relations,'' 127 invited the Executive Secretary of the National Urban League to 

"give us some of your time for a period." 128 Thus in March 1945 Lester B. 

Granger began his long association with the Department of Defense, an association that would span the military's integration effort. 129 Granger's assignment 

was straightforward. From time to time he would make extensive trips representing the secretary and his special interest in racial problems at various naval stations. 

Forrestal was sympathetic to the Urban League's approach to racial justice, 

and in Granger he had a man who had developed this approach into a social 

philosophy. Granger believed in relating the Navy's racial problems not toquestions of fairness but to questions of survival, comfort, and security for all concerned. He assumed that if leadership in any field came to understand that its 

privilege or its security were threatened by denial of fairness to the less privileged, then a meeting of minds was possible between the two groups. They 

would begin to seek a way to eliminate insecurity, and from the process of 

eliminating insecurity would come fairness. As Granger explained it, talk to the 

commander about his loss of efficient production, not the shame of denying a 

Negro a man's right to a job. Talk about the social costs that come from denial 

of opportunity and talk about the penalty that the privileged pay almost in 

equal measure to what the Negro pays, but in different coin. Only then would 

one begin to get a hearing. On the other hand, talk to Negroes not about 

achieving their rights but about making good on an opportunity. This would 

lead to a discussion of training, of ways to override barriers "by maintaining 

themselves whole. " 130 The Navy was going to get a lesson in race relations, Urban League style. 

At Forrestal's request, Granger explained how he viewed the special adviser's role. He thought he could help the secretary by smoothing the integration process in the general service through consultations with local commanders 

and their men in a series of field visits. He could also act as an intermediary between the department and the civil rights organizations and black press. 

126Mcmo, SccNav for Eugene Duffield (Asst to Under Sec), 16 Jan 45, 54-1-9; idem for Rear Adm A. 

Stanton Merrill (Dir of Pub Relations), 24· Mar and 4 May 45, 54-1-16. All in Forrestal file , GenRecsNav. 127Quoted in Forrestal, "Remarks for Dinner of Urban League.'' 128Ltr, SccNav to Lester Granger, 1 Feb 45, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav. 129Ltrs, Granger to Forrestal, 19 Mar and 3 Apr 45, 54-1 -13, Forrestal file, GenRccsNav. Granger and 

Forrcstal had attended Dartmouth College, but not together as Forrestal thought. For a detailed and affectionate account of their relationship, see Columbia University Oral Hisrory Interview with Granger. 

I30Columbia University Oral Hist Imerv with Granger. 
96 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Granger urged the formation of an advisory council, which would consist of 

ranking representatives from the various branches, to interpret and administer 

the Navy's racial policy. The need for such intradepartmental coordination 

seemed fa irly obvious. Although in 194 5 the Bureau of Naval Personnel had increased the resources of its Special Progams Unit, still the only specialized 

organization dealing with race problems, that group was always too swamped 

with administrative detail to police race problems outside Washington. Furthermore, the Seabees and the Medical and Surgery Department were in some ways 

independent of the bureau, and their employment of black sailors was different 

from that of other branches- a situation that created further confusion and conflict in the application of race policy. 1

31 

Assuming that the advisory counc il would require an executive agent, 

Granger suggested that the secretary have a full-time assistant for race relations 

in addition to his own part-time services. He wanted the man to be black and he 

wanted him in the secretary's office , which would give him prestige in the black 

community and increase his power to deal with the bureaus. Forrestal rejected 

the idea of a council and a full-time assistant, pleading that he must avoid 

creating another formal organization. Instead he decided to assemble an informal committee, which he invited Granger to join, to standardize the Navy's 

handling of Negroes. 13

2 

It was obvious that Forrestal, convinced that the Navy's senior officials had 

made a fundamental shift in their thinking on equal treatment and opportunity 

for Negroes in the Navy, was content to let specific reforms percolate slowly 

throughout the department. He would later call the Navy's wartime reforms' 'a 

start down a long road." 133 In these last months of the war, however, more barriers to equal treatment of Negroes were quietly falling. In March 1945, after 

months of prodding by Forrestal, the Surgeon General announced that the Navy 

would accept a "reasonable' ' number of qualified black nurses and was now 

recruiting for them. 134 In June the Bureau of Naval Personnel ordered the integration of recruit training , assigning black general service recruits to the 

nearest recruit training command "to obtain the maximum utilization of naval 

training and housing facilities.'' ~ Noting that this integration was at variance 

with some individual attitudes, the bureau justified the change on the grounds 

of administrative efficiency. Again at the secretary's urging, plans were set in 

motion in July for the assignment of Negroes to submarine and aviation pilot 

training. 136 At the same time Lester Granger, acting as the secretary's personal 

131 Mcmo, Chief, NavPers, for Cmdr Richard M. Paget (Exec Office of the SccNav), 21 Apr 4~. sub: 

Organization of Advisory Cmte, Pers 2119, GenRccsNav. See also "BuPersHist," pt. II, p. ;>.. 132Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 19 Mar 4~; Ltrs, SecNav to Granger. 26 Mar and~ Apr 45. All in ~4-1-13, 

Forrcstal file, GenRccsNav. The activities of the intradepartmental commiucc will be discussed in Chapter 5. 

IHLtr, Forrcstal to Marshall Field ill (p'ublisherol PM), 14 Jul 45. 5'q-1-t3. Fou·estal file , GcnRecsNav. 

IHMcmo, SecNav for Rear Adm W. J. C. Agnew, Asst Surg Gcn, 28 jan 45; Memo, Surg Gcn for Eugene 

Duffield. 19 Mar 45; both in 54-1-3. Forrestal file. GcnRecsNav. By V-J day the Navy had four black nurses 

on active duty. 

I})Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to Cmdts, All Naval Districts, II jun 4~. sub: Negro Recruit Training-Discontinuance of Special Program and Camps for, P\6-3/MM , BuPcrsRccs. 

I3

6Mcmo, SccNav for Artemus L. Gates, ASSt Sec for Air. et al., 16 Jul 45; Ltr, SecNav to Granger. 14 Jul 

45; both in ~4-1-20, GcnRccsNav. 
WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY 97 

THE 22D SPECIAL CONSTRUCTION BATT A LION CELEBRATES V-J DAY 

representative, was visiting the Navy's continental installations, prodding commanders and converting them to the new policy. 137 

The Navy's wartime progress in race relations was the product of several 

forces. At first Negroes were restricted to service as messmen, but political 

pressure forced the Navy to open general service billets to them. In this the influence of the civil rights spokesmen was paramount. They and their allies in 

Congress and the national political parties led President Roosevelt to demand an 

end to exclusion and the Navy to accept Negroes for segregated general service. 

The presence of large numbers of black inductees and the limited number of 

assignments for them in segregated units prevented the Bureau of Naval Personnel from providing even a semblance of separate but equal conditions. 

Deteriorating black morale and the specter of racial disturbance drove the 

bureau to experiment with all-black crews, but the experiment led nowhere. 

The Navy could never operate a separate but equal fleet. Finally in 1944 Forreseal began to experiment with integration in seagoing assignments. 

The influence of the civil rights forces can be overstated. Their attention 

tended to focus on the Army, especially in the later years of the war; their attacks on the Navy were mostly sporadic and uncoordinated and easily deflected 

by naval spokesmen. Equally important to race reform was the fact that the 

Navy was developing its own group of civil rights advocates during the war, influential men in key positions who had been dissatisfied with the prewar status 

of the Negro and who pressed for racial change in the name of military effi1

37Ltr, Granger to Forrestal, 4 Aug 45, 54- J- 13, GcnRecsNav. 
98 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

ciency. Under the leadership of a sympathetic secretary, himself aided and abetted by Stevenson and other advisers in his office and in the Bureau of Naval Personnel, the Navy was laying plans for a racially integrated general service when 

Japan capitulated. 

To achieve equality of treatment and opportunity, however, takes more than 

the development of an integration policy. For one thing, the liberalization of 

policy and practices affected only a relatively small percentage of the Negroes in 

the Navy. On V-J day the Navy could count 164,942 enlisted Negroes, 5.37 

percent of its total enlisted strength. 138 More than double the prewar percentage, this figure was still less than half the national ratio of blacks to whites. In 

August 1945 the Navy had 60 black officers, 6 of whom were women (4 nurses 

and 2 WAVES), and 68 enlisted WAVES who were not segregated. The integration of the Navy officer corps, the WAVES, and the nurses had an immediate 

effect on only 128 people. Figures for black enlisted men show that they were 

employed in some sixty-seven ratings by the end of the war, but steward and 

steward's mate ratings accounted for some 68,000 men, about 40 percent of the 

total black enlistment. Approximately 59,000 others were ordinary seamen, 

some were recruits in training or specialists striking for ratings, but most were 

assigned to the large segregated labor units and base companies. 139 Here again 

integrated service affected only a small portion of the Navy's black recruits during World War ll. 

Furthermore, a real chance existed that even this limited progress might 

prove to be temporary. On V-J day the Regular Navy had 7,066 Negroes, just 

2.14 percent of its total. 140 Many of these men could be expected to stay in the 

postwar Navy, but the overwhelming majority of them were in the separate 

Steward's Branch and would remain there after the war. Black reservists in the 

wartime general service would have to compete with white regulars and reservists 

for the severely reduced number of postwar billets and commissions in a Navy in 

which almost all members would have to be regulars. Although Lester Granger 

had stressed this point in conversations with James Forrestal, neither the 

secretary nor the Bureau of Naval Personnel took the matter up before the end 

of the war. In short, after setting in motion a number of far-reaching reforms 

during the war, the Navy seemed in some danger of settling back into its old 

prewar pattern. 

Still, the fact that reforms had been attempted in a service that had so 

recently excluded Negroes was evidence of progress. Secretary Forrestal was convinced that the Navy's hierarchy had swung behind the principle of equal treatment and opportunity, but the real test was yet to come. Hope for a permanent 

change in the Navy's racial practices lay in convincing its tradition-minded officers that an integrated general service with a representative share of black officers and men was a matter of military efficiency. 

I38Pers 21 ~-BL, "Enlisted Strength-U.S. Navy," 26 Jul46, BuPersRecs. 139Pers 21 ~-12-EL, ''Number of Negro Enlisted Personnel on Active Duty,'' 29 Nov 4) (statistics as of 31 

Oct 4 )) , BuPcrsRecs. 

l40Pers-21)-BL, "Enlisted Strength- U.S. Navy," 26 Jul46. 
CHAPTER4 

World War II: The 

Marine Corps and the Coast Guard 

The racial policies of both the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard were 

substantially the same as the Navy policy from which they were derived, but all 

three differed markedly from each other in their practical application. The differences arose partly from the panicular mission and size of these components of 

the wartime Navy, but they were also governed by the peculiar legal relationship 

that existed in time of war between the Navy and the other two services. 

By law the Marine Corps was a component of the Department of the Navy, 

its commandant subordinate to the Secretary of the Navy in such matters as 

manpower and budget and to the Chief of Naval Operations in specified areas 

of military operations. In the conduct of ordinary business, however, the commandant was independent of the Navy's bureaus, including the Bureau of 

Naval Personnel. The Marine Corps had its own staff personnel officer, similar 

to the Army's G-1, and, more important for the development of racial policy, 

it had a Division of Plans and Policies that was immediately responsible to the 

commandant for manpower p lanning. In practical terms, the Marine Corps of 

World War II was subject to the dictates of the Secretary of the Navy for general 

policy, and the secretary's 1942 order to enlist Negroes applied equally to the 

Marine Corps, which had no Negroes in its ranks, and to the Navy, which did. 

At the same time, the letters and directives of the Chief of Naval Operations 

and the Chief of Naval Personnel implementing the secretary's order did not apply to the corps. In effect, the Navy Department imposed a racial policy on the 

corps, but left it to the commandant to carry out that policy as he saw fit. These 

legal distinctions would become more imponant as the Navy's racial policy 

evolved in the postwar period. 

The Coast Guard's administrative position had early in the war become 

roughly analogous to that of the Marine Corps. At all times a branch of the 

armed forces, the Coast Guard was normally a part of the Treasury Department. 

A statute of 1915, however, p rovided that during wartime or "whenever the 

President may so direct" the Coast Guard would operate as part of the Navy, 

subject to the orders of the Secretary of the Navy. 1 At the direction of the President, the Coast Guard passed to the control of the Secretary of the Navy on 1 

November 1941 and so remained until! January 1946.2 

138 U.S. Stat. at L (191~). 800-2. Since 1967 the Coast Guard has been a part of the Department of 

Transportation. 2

Executive Order 8928, 1 Nov 41. A similar transfer under provisions of the 1915 law was effected during 

World War I. The service's predecessor organizations, the Revenue Marine, Revenue Service, Revenue·Marine 

Service, and the Revenue Cutter Service, had also provided the Navy with certain specified ships and men during all wars since the Revolution. 
100 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

At first a division under the Chief of Naval Operations, the headquarters of 

the Coast Guard was later granted considerably more administrative autonomy. 

In March 1942 Secretary Knox carefully delineated the Navy's control over the 

Coast Guard, making the Chief of Naval Operations responsible for the operation of those Coast Guard ships, planes. and stations assigned to the naval commands for the "proper conduct of the war," but specifying that assignments be 

made with "due regard for the needs of the Coast Guard," which must continue to carry .out its regular functions. Such duties as providing port security, 

icebreaking services, and navigational aid remained under the direct control and 

supervision of the commandant, the local naval district commander exercising 

only "general military control" of these activities iQ his area. 3 Important to the 

development of racial policy was the fact that the Coast Guard also retained administrative control of the recruitment, training, and assignment of personnel. 

Like the Marine Corps, it also had a staff agency for manpower planning, the 

Commandant's Advisory Board, and one for administration, the Personnel 

Division, independent of the Navy's bureaus.4 In theory, the Coast Guard's 

manpower policy, at least in regard to those segments of the service that 

operated directly under Navy control, had to be compatible with the racial 

directives of the Navy's Bureau of Naval Personnel. In practice, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, like his colleague in the Marine Corps, was left free to 

develop his own racial policy in accordance with the general directives of the 

Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations. 

The First Black Marines 

These legal distinctions had no bearing on the Marine Corps' prewar racial 

policy, which was designed to continue its tradition of excluding Negroes. The 

views of the commandant, Maj. Gen. Thomas Holcomb, on the subject of race 

were well known in the Navy. Negroes did not have the "right" to demand a 

place in the corps, General Holcomb told the Navy's General Board when that 

body was considering the expansion of the corps in April 1941. " If it were a 

question of having a Marine Corps of 5,000 whites or 250,000 Negroes, I would 

rather have the whites."> He was more circumspect but no more reasonable 

when he explained the racial exclusion publicly. Black enlistment was impractical, he told one civil rights group, because the Marine Corps was too smaU to 

form racially separate units.6 And, if some Negroes persisted in trying to 

volunteer after Pearl Harbor, there was another deterrent, described by at least 

one senior recruiter: the medical examiner was cautioned to disqualify the black 

applicant during the enlistment physical. 7 

}Ltr. SccNav tO CominCh-CNO, 30 Mar 42, sub: Administration of Coast Guard When Operating Under 

Navl, Depanmcm, quoted in Furcr. Administration of the Navy Department in World War II, pp. 608-10. 

For a survey of the organization and functions of the U.S. Coasr Guard Personnel Division. sec USCG 

Historical Section, Persomul. The Coast Guard at War, 25:16-27. 

>Quoted in Navy General Board. "Plan for the Expansion of the USMC." 18 Apr 41 (No. 139). Recs of 

Gen Bd. OpNavArchives. 6

Ltr, CMC ro Harold E. Thompson. Northern Phila. Voters League, 6 Aug 40, AQ- 17, Central Files, 

Headquarters, USMC (hereafter MC fi les). 7

Memo, Off in Charge. Eastern Recruiting Div, for CMC. 16 Jan 42, sub: Colored Applicants for Enlistment in the Marine Corps. WP 11991. MC files. 
WORLD WAR II: THE MARINE CORPS AND THE COAST GUARD 101 

Such evasions could no longer be practiced after President Roosevelt decided 

to admit Negroes to the general service of the naval establishment. Accordin'g to 

Secretary Knox the President wanted the Navy to handle the matter ''in a way 

that would not inject into the whole personnel of the Navy the race question.' '

8 

Under pressure to make some move, General Holcomb proposed the enlistment 

of 1,000 Negroes in the volunteer Marine Corps Reserve for duty in the general 

service in a segregated composite defense battalion. The battalion would consist 

primarily of seacoast and antiaircraft artillery, a rifle company with a light tank 

platoon, and other weapons units and components necessary to make it a selfsustaining unit.9 To inject the subject of race "to a less degree than any other 

known scheme,'' the commandant planned to train the unit in an isolated camp 

and assign it to a remote station. 10 The General Board accepted this proposal, 

explaining to Secretary Knox that Negroes could not be used in the Marine 

Corps' amphibious units because the inevitable replacement and redistribution 

of men in combat would "prevent the maintenance of necessary segregation." 

The board also mentioned that experienced noncommissioned officers were at a 

premium and that diverting them to train a black unit would be militarily inefficient. 11 

Although the enlistment of black marines began on 1 June 1942, the corps 

placed the reservists on inactive status until a training-size unit could be enlisted 

and segregated facilities built at Montford Point on the vase training reservation 

at Marine Barracks, New River (later renamed Camp LeJeune), North 

Carolina. 12 On 26 August the first contingent of Negroes began recruit training 

as the 51st Composite Defense Battalion at Montford Point under the command 

of Col. Samuel A. Woods, Jr. The corps had wanted co avoid having to train 

men as typists, truck drivers, and the like- specialist skills needed in the black 

composite unit. Instead, the commandant established black quotas for three of 

the four recruiting divisions, specifying chat more chan half che recruits qualify 

in the needed skills. 1

3 

8Mcmo, SccNav for Adm W. R. Sexton, 14 Feb 42. P14-4, Recs of Gcn Bd, OpNavArchivcs. The quota· 

tion is from the Knox Memo and is not necessarily in the President's exact words. 

9Jn devising plans for the composite battalion the Director of Plans and Policies rejected a proposal to 

organize a black raider battalion. The author of the proposal had explained that Negroes would make ideal 

night raiders "as no camouflage of faces and hands would be necessary." Memo, Col Thomas Gale for Exec 

Off. Div of Plans and Policies, 19 Feb 42, A0-250, MC files. 10Memo, CMC for Chmn of Gen Bd, 27 Feb 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of the Colored Race in Other 

Than Messman Branch, A0-172, MC fi les. 11 Memo, Chmn of Gen Bd for SccNav. 20 Mar 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of the Colored Race in Other 

Than Messman Branch (G.B. No. 421). Recs of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives. 12Memo, CMC for District Cmdrs, All Reserve Districrs Except lOth, 14th, 15th, and 16rh. 25 May 42, 

sub: Enlistment of Colored Personnel in the Marine Corps, Historical and Museum Division, Headquarters, 

U.S. Marine Corps (hereafter Hist Div, HQMC). For further discussion of the training of black marines and 

other matters pertaining to Negroes in the Marine Corps, sec Shaw and Donnelly, Blacks in the MaTJiJe Corps. 

This volume by the corps' chic£ historian and the former chief of its history division's reference branch is the 

official account. 1 lMemo, CMC for Off in Charge. Eastern, Central, and Southern Recruiting Divs, 15 May 42, sub: Enlist· 

ment of Colored Personnel in the Marine Corps, AP- 54 (1535), MC files. The country was divided into four 

recruiting divisions, bur black enlistment was not opened in the west coast division on the theory that there 

would be few volunteers and sending them tO North Carolina would be unjustifiably expensive. Only white 

marines were trained in California. This circumstance brought complaints from civil rights groups. See, for ex· 

ample, Tclg, Walter White to SecNav, 14 }ul42, AP-361, MC files. 
102 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

MARINES OF THE 51ST DEFENSE BATTALION await turn on rtfle range, Montford 

Point, 1942. 

The enlistment process proved difficult. The commandant reported that 

despite predictions of black educators to the contrary the corps had netted only 

sixty-three black recruits capable of passing the entrance examinations during 

the first three weeks of recruitment. 14 As late as 29 October the Director of Plans 

and Policies was reporting that only 647 of the scheduled 1,200 men (the final 

strength figure decided upon for the all-black unit) had been enlisted. He 

blamed the occupational qualifications for the delay, adding that it was doubtful II if even white recruits'' could be procured under such strictures. The commandant approved his plan for enlisting Negroes without specific qualifications 

and instituting a modified form of specialist training. Black marines would not 

be sent to specialist schools "unless there is a colored school available," but instead Marine instructors would be sent to teach in the black camp. t ) In the end 

many of these first black specialists received their training in nearby Army installations. 

14Memo, CMC for SecNav, 23 Jun 42, AP- )4 (l)3S-ll0), MC files. 

I)Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 29 Oct 42, sub: Enlistment of Colored Personnel in the 

Marine Corps Reserve, A0-320, MC files. 
WORLD WAR II: THE MARINE CORPS AND THE COAST GUARD 103 

Segregation was the common practice in all the services in 1942 , as indeed it 

was throughout much of American society. If this practice appeared somehow 

more restrictive in the Marine Corps than it did in the other services, it was 

because of the corps' size and traditions. The illusion of equal treatment and 

opportunity could be kept alive in the massive Army and Navy with their 

myriad units and military occupations; it was much more difficult to preserve in 

the small and specialized Marine Corps. Given segregation, the Marine Corps 

was obliged to put its few black marines in its few black units, whose small size 

limited the variety of occupations and training opportunities. 

Yet the size of the corps would undergo considerable change, and on 

balance it was the Marine Corps' tradition of an all-white service, not its restrictive size, that proved to be the most significant factor influencing racial policy. 

Again unlike the Army and Navy, the Marine Corps lacked the practical experience with black recruits that might have countered many of the alarums and 

prejudices concerning Negroes that circulated within the corps during the war. 

The importance of this experience factor comes out in the reminiscences of a 

senior official in the Division of Plans and Policies who looked back on his 1942 

expenences: 

lt just scared us to death when the colored were put on it. I went over to Selective Service 

and saw Gen. Hershey, and he turned me over to a lieutenant colonel [Campbell C. 

Johnson]- that was in April- and he was one grand person. I told him, "Eleanor [Mrs. Rooseveft) says we gotta take in Negroes, and we are just scared to death , we've never 

had any in, we don't know how to handle them, we arc afraid of them." He said, 'Til 

do my best to help you get good ones. I'll ~et the word around that if you want to die 

young, join the Marines. So anybody that joms is got to be pretty good!" And it was the 

truth. We got some awfully good Negroes. 16 

Unfortunately for the peace of mind of the Marine Corps' personnel planner, the conception of a carefully limited and isolated black contingent was 

quickly overtaken by events. The President's decision to abolish volunteer 

enlistments for the armed forces in December 1942 and the subsequent 

establishment of a black quota for each component of the naval establishment 

meant that in the next year some 15,400 more Negroes, 10 percent of all Marine 

Corps inductees, would be added to the corps. 17 As it turned out the monthly 

draft calls were never completely filled, and by December 1943 only 9,916 of 

the scheduled black inductions had been completed, but by the time the corps 

stopped drafting men in 1946 it had received over 16,000 Negroes through the 

Selective Service. Including the 3,129 black volunteers, the number of Negroes 

in the Marine Corps during World War II totaled 19,168, approximately 4 percent of the corps' enlisted men. 

The immediate problem of what to do with this sudden influx of Negroes 

was complicated by the fact that many of the draftees, the product of vastly inferior schooling, were incompetent. Where black volunteers had to pass the 

16USMC Oral History Interview, General Ray A. Robinson (USMC Ret.), 18-19 Mar 68, p. 136. Hist Div, 

HQMC. 17Memo. CMC for Chief, NavPers, 1 Apr 43. sub: Negro Registrants To Be Inducted Into the Marine 

Corps, A0- 320- 2350-60, MC files. 
104 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

corps' rigid entrance requirements, draftees had only to meet the lowest selective service standards. An exact breakdown of black Marine Corps draftees by 

General Classification Test category is unavailable for the war period. A 

breakdown of some 15,000 black enlisted men, however, was compiled ten 

weeks after V-J day and included many of those drafted during the war. 

Category I represents the most gifted men: 18 

Category: I II 

Percentage: 0.11 ).14 

III 

24.08 

IV 

59.63 

v 

11.04 

If these figures are used as a base, slightly more than 70 percent of all black 

enlisted men, more than 11,000, scored in the two lowest categories, a meaningless racial statistic in terms of actual numbers because the smaller percentage 

of the much larger group of white draftees in these categories gave the corps 

more whites than blacks in groups IV and V. Yet the statistic was important 

because low-scoring Negroes, unlike the low-scoring whites who could be scattered throughout the corps' units, had to be concentrated in a small number of 

segregated units to the detriment of those units. Conversely, the corps had 

thousands of Negroes with the mental aptitude to serve in regular combat units 

and a small but significant number capable of becoming officers. Yet these men 

were denied the opportunity to serve in combat or as officers because the 

segregation policy dictated that Negroes could not be assigned to a regular combat unit unless all the billets in that unit as well as all replacements were 

black- a practical impossibility during World War II. 

Segregation, not the draft, forced the Marine Corps to devise new jobs and 

units to absorb the black inductees. A plan circulated in the Division of Plans 

and Policies called for more defense battalions, a branch for messmen, and the 

assignment of large black units to local bases to serve as chauffeurs, messengers, 

clerks, and janitors. Referring to the janitor assignment, one division official admitted that "I don't think we can get away with this type duty." 19 In the end 

the Negroes were not used as chauffeurs, messengers, clerks, and janitors. Instead the corps placed a ''maximum practical number'' in defense battalions. 

The number of these units, however, was limited, as Maj. Gen. Harry Schmidt, 

the acting commandant, explained in March 1943, by the number of black noncommissioned officers available. Black noncommissioned officers were 

necessary, he continued, because in the Army's experience "in nearly all cases to 

intermingle colored and white enlisted personnel in the same organization'' led 

to ''trouble and disorder. '' 20 Demonstrating his own and the Marine Corps' lack 

of experience with black troops, the acting commandant went on to provide his 

commanders with some rather dubious advice based on what he perceived as the 

Army's experience: black units should be commanded by men "who 

18Memo, Dir, Pers, for Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, 21 }ul 48, sub: GCT Percentile Equivalents for Colored Enlisted Marines in November 1945 and in March 1948, sub file: Negro Marines-Test and Testing, Rd 

Br, !-list Div, HQMC. 19Unsigncd Memo for Dir, Plans and Policies Div, 26 Dec 42, sub: Colored Personnel, wirh attached 

handwrirrcn note. A0- 320. MC files. 

20Ltr. Actg CMC tO Major Cmdrs, 20 Mar 43. sub: Colored Personnel, AP-361, MC files. 
WORLD WAR II: THE MARINE CORPS AND THE COAST GUARD 105 

SHORE PARTY IN TRAINING, CAMP LEJEUNE, 1942 

thoroughly knew their [Negroes'] individual and racial characteristics and 

temperaments,'' and Negroes should be assigned to work they preferred. 

The points emphasized in General Schmidt's letter to Marine commanders- a rigid insistence o·n racial separation and a willingness to work for 

equal treatment of black troops-along with an acknowledgement of the Marine 

Corps' lack of experience with racial problems were reflected in Commandant 

Holcomb's basic instruction on the subject of Negroes two months later: "All 

Marines are entitled to the same rights and privileges under Navy Regulations," 

and black marines could be expected ''to conduct themselves with propriety and 

become a credit to the Marine Corps.'' General Holcomb was aware of the 

adverse effect of white noncommissioned officers on black morale, and he 

wanted them removed from black units as soon as possible. Since the employment of black marines was in itself a "new departure,'' he wanted to be informed periodically on how Negroes adapted to Marine Corps life, what their 

off-duty experience was with recreational facilities, and what their attitude was 

toward other marines. 

21 

These were generally progressive sentiments, evidence of the commandant's 

desire to provide for the peaceful assimilation and advancement of Negroes in 

the corps. Unfortunately for his reputation among the civil rights advocates, 

General Holcomb seemed overly concerned with certain social implications of 

21

Ltrof Instruction No. 421, CMC to All CO's, 14 May 43, sub: Colored Personnel, MC files. 
106 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

D-DAY ON PELELIU. Support troops participate in the landing of 1st Marine 

Division. 

rank and color. Undeterred by a lack of personal experience with interracial 

command, he was led in the name of racial harmony to an unpopular conclusion. "It is essential," he told his commanders, "that in no case shall there be 

colored noncommissioned officers senior to white men in the same unit, and 

desirable that few, if any be of the same rank. " 22 He was particularly concerned 

with the period when white instructors and noncommissioned officers were being phased out of black units. He wanted Negroes up for promotion to corporal 

transferred, before promotion, out of arly unit that contained white corporals. 

The Division of Plans and Policies tried to follow these strictures as it set 

about organizing the new black units. Job preference had already figured in the 

organization of the new Messman's Branch established in January 1943. At that 

time Secretary Knox had approved the reconstitution of the corps' all-white 

Mess Branch as the Commissary Branch and the organization of an aU-black 

22Ibid . The subject of widespread public complaint when its existence became known after the war, the instruction was rescinded. See Memo.]. A. Stuarr. Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 14 Feb 46. sub: Lu of 

lnst 11421 Revocation of, A0-1, copy in Ref Br. Hist·Div, HQMC. 
WORLD WAR II: THE MARINE CORPS AND THE COAST GUARD 107 

MEDICAL A'M'ENDANTS AT REST, PELELIU, O CTOBER, 1944 

Messman's Branch along the lines of the Navy's Steward's Branch.23 In authorizing the new branch, which was quickly redesignated the Steward's Branch to 

conform to the Navy model, Secretary Knox specified that the members must 

volunteer for such duty. Yet the corps, under pressure to produce large numbers 

of stewards in the early months of the war, showed so little faith in the volunteer 

system that Marine recruiters were urged to induce half of all black recruits to 

sign on as stewards.

24 Original plans called for the assignment of one steward for 

every six officers, but the lack of volunteers and the needs of the corps quickly 

caused this estimate to be scaled down. 2, By 5 July 1944 the Steward's Branch 

23Memo, CMC for SecNav. 30 Dec 42, sub: Change of Present Mess Branch in the Marine Corps to Com· 

missary Branch and Establishment of a Messman's Branch and Ranks Therein, with SecNav approval in· 

dicated, AO-363-311. Sec also Memo, CMC for Chid, NavPers, 30 Dec 42, sub: Request for Allotment to 

MC ... , A-363; Memo. Dir. Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 23 Nov 42, sub: Organitation of Mess 

Branch (Colored}, A0-283. All in MC files. 24Mcmo, Dir of Recruiting for Off in Charge, Eastern Recruiting Div et al., 25 Feb 42, sub: Messman 

Branch. AP-361-1390; Memo. CMC for SccNav, 3 Apr 43. sub: Change in Designation .... 

A0-340-1930. Both in MC files. 2)Mcmo. Dir. Plans and Policies. for CMC. 18 May 43. sub: Assignment of Steward's Branch Personnel, 

A0-371 , MCfiles. 
108 INTE9RATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

numbered 1,442 men, roughly 14 percent of the total black strength of the 

Marine Corps. 26 1t remained approximately this size for the rest of the war. 

The admonition to employ black marines to the maximum extent practical 

in defense battalions was based on the mobilization planners' belief that each of 

these battalions, with its varied artillery, infantry. and armor units, would provide close to a thousand black marines with varied assignments in a selfcontained, segregated unit. But the realities of the Pacific war and the draft 

quick.ly rendered these plans obsolete. As the United States gained the ascendancy, the need for defense battalions rapidly declined, just as the need for 

special logistical units to move supplies in the forward areas increased. The corps 

had originally depended on its replacement battalions to move the mountains of 

supply involved in amphibious assaults, but the constant flow of replacements 

to battlefield units and the need for men with special logistical skill had led in 

the middle of the war to the organization of pioneer battalions. To supplement 

the work of these shore party units and to absorb the rapidly growing number of 

black draftees, the Division of Plans and Policies eventually created fifty-one 

separate depot companies and twelve separate ammunition companies manned 

by Negroes. The majority of these new units served in base and service depots, 

handling ammunition and hauling supplies, but a significant number of them 

also served as part of the shore parties attached to the divisional assault units. 

These units often worked under enemy fire and on occasion joined in the battle 

as they moved supplies, evacuated the wounded, and secured the operation's 

supply dumps. 27 Nearly 8,000 men, about 40 percent of the corps' black enlistment, served in this sometimes hazardous combat support duty. The experience 

of these depot and ammunition companies provided the Marine Corps with an 

interesting irony. In contrast to Negroes in the other services, black marines 

trained for combat were never so used . Those trained for the humdrum labor 

tasks, however, found themselves in the thick of the fighting on Saipan, Peleliu, 

Iwo Jima , and elsewhere, suffering combat casualties and winning combat citations for their units. 

The increased allotment of black troops entering the corps and the commandant's call for replacing all white noncommissioned officers with blacks as 

quickly as they could be sufficiencly trained caused problems for the black combat units. The 51st Defense Battalion in particular suffered many vicissitudes in 

its training and deployment. The 51st was the first black unit in the Marine 

Corps, a doubtful advantage considering the frequent reorganization and rapid 

troop turnover that proved its lot. At first the reception and training of all black 

inductees fell to the battalion, but in March 1943 a separate Headquarters Company, Recruit Depot Battalion, was organized at Montford Point. 28 Its cadre was 

26Memo, H. E. Dunkelberger, M-1 Sec. Div of Plans and Policies, tor Asst CMC, 5 Jul44, sub: Steward's 

Branch Personnel, A0- 660, MC files. 27Shaw and Donnelly, Blacks in the Marine Corps, pp. 29-46. See also, HQMC Div of Public Information, "The Negro Marine, 1942-1945," Ref Br, Hist Div, HQMC. 28Memo, CO, 51st Def Bn, for Dir, Plans and Policies, 29 Jan 43, sub: Colored Personnel, Ref Br, Hist 

Div, HQMC. 
WORLD WAR II: THE MARINE CORPS AND THE COAST GUARD 109 

drawn from the 51st, as were the noncommissioned officers and key personnel of 

the newly organized ammunition and depot companies and the black security 

detachments organized at Montford Point and assigned to the Naval Ammunition Depot, McAlester, Oklahoma, and the Philadelphia Depot of Supplies. 

. In effect, the 51st served as a specialist training school for the black combat 

units. When the second black defense battalion, the 52d, was organized in 

December 1943 its cadre, too, was drawn from the 51st. By the time the 51st was 

actually deployed, it had been reorganized several times and many of its best 

men had been siphoned off as leaders for new units. To compound these losses 

of experienced men, the battalion was constantly receiving large influxes of inexperienced and educationally deficient draftees and sometimes there was infighting among its officers. 29 

Training for black units only emphasized the rigid segregation enforced in 

the Marine Corps. After their segregated eight-week recruit training, the men 

were formed into companies at Montford Point; those assigned to the defense 

battalions were sent for specialist training in the weapons and equipment 

employed in such units, including radar, motor transport, communications, and 

artillery fire directiot •. Each of the ammunition companies sent sixty of its men 

to special ammunition and camouflage schools where they would be promoted 

to corporal when they completed the course. In contrast to the depot companies 

and elements of the defense battalions, the ammunition units would have white 

staff sergeants as ordnance specialists throughout the war. This exception to the 

rule of black noncommissioned officers for black units was later justified on the 

grounds that such units required experienced supervisors to emphasize and enforce safety regulations. 30 On the whole specialist training was segregated; 

whenever possible even the white instructors were rapidly replaced by blacks. 

Before being sent overseas, black units underwent segregated field training, 

although the length of this training varied considerably according to the type of 

unit. Depot companies, for example, were labor units pure and simple, organized to perform simple tasks, and many of them were sent to the Pacific less than 

two weeks after activation. In contrast, the 51st Defense Battalion spent cwo 

months in hard field training, scarcely enough considering the number of raw 

recruits, totally unfamiliar with gunnery, that were being fed regularly into 

what was essentially an artillery battalion. 

The experience of the two defense battalions demonstrates that racial consideration governed their eventual deployment just as it had decided their 

organization. With no further strategic need for defense battalions, the Marine 

Corps began to dismantle them in 1944 , just as the two black units became 

operational and were about to be sent to the Central and South Pacific. The 

2

9For charges and countercharges on the pan of the 51st's commanders. see Hq. 51 sr Defense Bn, "Record 

of Proceedings of an Investigation." 27 Jun 44; Memo, Lt Col Floyd A. Stephenson for CMC. 30 May 44. sub: 

Fifty.first Defense Battalion, Fleet Marine Force. with indorsements and attachments; Memo. CO, 51st Del 

Bn, for CMC, 20 Jul 44, sub: Combat Efficiency. Fifty-First Defense Battalion. All in Ref Br, Hist Div, 

HQMC. 

3°Shaw and Donnelly. 8/acJu in the Marine Corps, p. 31. 
110 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

., 

I 

GUN CREW OF THE 52D D EFENSE BKIT ALION on duty, Central Paczfic, 1945. 

eighteen white defense battalions were subsequently reorganized as antiaircraft 

artillery battalions for use with amphibious groups in the forward areas. While 

the two black units were similarly reorganized, only they and one of the white 

units retained the title of defense battalion. Their deployment was also different. The policy of self-contained, segregated service was, in the case of a large 

combat unit, best followed in the rear areas, and the two black battalions were 

assigned to routine garrison duties in the backwaters of the cheater, the 51st at 

Eniwetok in the Marshalls, the 52d at Guam. The latter unit saw nearly half its 

combat-trained men detailed to work as stevedores. It was not surprising that 

the morale in both units suffered. 31 

Even more explicitly racial was the warning of a senior combat commander 

to the effect that the deployment of black depot units to the Polynesian areas of 

the Pacific should be avoided. The Polynesians, he explained, were delightful 

people, and their "primitively romantic" women shared their intimate favors 

with one and all. Mixture with the white race had produced "a very high-class 

half-caste,'' mixture with the Chinese a ''very desirable type,'' but the union of 

black and "Melanesian types .. . produces a very undesirable citizen. " The 

31 For a discussion of black morale in the combat·trained units, see USMC Oral History Interview, Obie 

Hall, 16 Aug 72, Ref Br, and John H. Griffin, "My Life in the Marine Corps," Personal Papers Collection, 

Museums Br. Both in Hist Div, HQMC. 
WORLD WAR II: THE MARINE CORPS AND THE COAST GUARD 111 

Marine Corps, Maj. Gen. Charles F. B. Price continued, had a special moral 

obligation and a selfish interest in protecting the population of American 

Samoa, especially, from intimacy with Negroes; he strongly urged therefore that 

any black units deployed to the Pacific should be sent to Micronesia where they 

''can do no racial harm. '' 32 

General Price must. have been entertaining second thoughts, since two depot 

companies were already en route to Samoa at his request. Nevertheless, because 

of the ''importance'' of his reservations the matter was brought to the attention 

of the Director of Plans and Policies. H As a result, the assignment of the 7th and 

8th Depot Companies to Samoa proved short-lived. Arriving on 13 October 

1943 , they were redeployed to the Ellice Islands in the Micronesia group the 

next day. 

Thanks to the operations of the ammunition and depot companies, a large 

number of black marines, serving in small, efficient labor units, often exposed 

to enemy fire, made a valuable contribution. That so many black marines participated, at least from time to time, in the fighting may explain in part the fact 

that relatively few racial incidents took place in the corps during the war. But if 

many Negroes served in forward areas, they were all nevertheless severely 

restricted in opportunity. Black marines were e~cluded from the corps' 

celebrated combat divisions and its air arm. They were also excluded from the 

Women's Reserve, and not until the last months of the war did the corps accept 

its first black officer candidates. Marine spokesmen justified the latter exclusion 

on the grounds that the corps lacked facilities-that is, segregated facilities-for 

training black officers. 34 

These exclusions did not escape the attention of the civil rights spokesmen 

who took their demands to Secretary Knox and the White House. 35 It was to 

little avail. With the exception of the officer candidates in 1945 , the separation 

of the races remained absolute, and Negroes continued to be excluded from the 

main combat units of the Marine Corps. 

Personal prejudices aside, the desire for social harmony and the fear of the 

unknown go far toward explaining the Marine Corps' wartime racial policy. A 

small , specialized, and racially exclusive organization, the Marine Corps reacted 

to the directives of the Secretary of the Navy and the necessities of wartime 

operation with a rigid segregation policy, its black troops restricted to about 4 

percent of its enlisted strength. A large part of this black strength was assigned 

to labor units where Negroes pedormed valuable and sometimes dangerous service in the Pacific war. Complaints from civil rights advocates abounded, but 

neither protests nor the cost to military efficiency of duplicating training 

32Ltr, Maj Gen Charles F. B. Price to Brig Gen Keller E. Rockey, 24 Apr 43; 26132, Ref Br, Hist Div, 

HQMC. 

33Brig Gen Rockey for S-C files, 4 Jun 43. Memo, G. F. Good, Div of Plans and Policies, to Dir, Div of 

Plans and Policies, 3 Sep 43. Both attached w Price Ltr, seen. 32 above. 

34Lu, Phillips D. Carleton, Asst to Dir, MC Reserve, to Welford Wilson, U.S. Employment Service, 27 

Mar43, AF-464, MC files. For more on black officers in the Marine Corps, sec Chapter9. 

35See, for example, Ltr, Mary Findley Allen, Interracial Cmte of Federation of Churches. tO Mrs. Roosevelt 

(ca. 9 Mar 43); Memo, SecNav for Rear Adm Jacobs, 22 Mar 43, P-25; Memo, R. C. Kilmartin, Jr., Div of 

Plans and Policies, for Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, 25 Sep 43, A0-434. All in Hist Div, HQMC. 
112 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

CREWMEN OF USCG LIFEBOAT STATION. PEA ISLAND, NORTH CAROLINA, ready 

surf boat for launching. 

facilities were of sufficient moment to overcome the sentiment against significant racial change, which was kept to a minimum. Judged strictly in terms of 

keeping racial harmony, the corps policy must be considered a success. Ironically 

this very success prevented any modification of that policy during the war. 

New Roles for Black Coast Guardsmen 

The Coast Guard's pre-World War II experience with Negroes differed from 

that of the other branches of the naval establishment. Unlike the Marine Corps, 

the Coast Guard could boast a tradition of black enlistment stretching far back 

into the previous century. Although it shared this tradition with the Navy, the 

Coast Guard, unlike the Navy, had always severely restricted Negroes both in 

terms of numbers enlisted and jobs assigned. A small group of Negroes manned 

a lifesaving station at Pea Island on North Carolina's outer banks. Negroes also 

served as crewmen at several lighthouses and on tenders in the Mississippi River 

basin; all were survivors of the transfer of the Lighthouse Service to the Coast 

Guard in 1939. These guardsmen were almost always segregated, although a few 

served in integrated crews or even commanded large Coast Guard vessels and 
WORLD WAR II: THE MARINE CORPS AND THE COAST GUARD 113 

COAST GUARD RECRUITS at Manhattan Beach Training Station, New York. 

small harbor craft. 36 They also served in the separate Steward's Branch, although 

it might be argued that the small size of most Coast Guard vessels integrated in 

fact men who were segregated in theory. 

The lot of the black Coast Guardsman on a small cutter was not necessarily a 

happy one. To a surprising extent the enlisted men of the prewar Coast Guard 

were drawn from the eastern shore and outer banks region of the Atlantic coast 

where service in the Coast Guard had become a strong family tradition among a 

people whose attitude toward race was rarely progressive. Although these men 

tolerated an occasional small black Coast Guard crew or station, they might well 

resist close service with individual Negroes. One commander reponed that racial 

36Cap1. Michael Healy, who was of Irish and Afro· American heritage, served as commanding officer of the 

Bear and other major Coast Guard vessels. Ar his retirement in 1903 Healy was the third ranking officer in the 

U.S. Revenue Cutter Service. See Robert E. G ree ne, Black Defenders of America, 1775- 1973 (Chicago: 

johnson Publishing Company, 1974), p. 139. For pre· World War II service of Negroes in the Coast G uard, sec 

Truman R. Strobridge. Blacks and Lights: A Brief Historical Survey of Blacks a11d the Old U.S. Lighthouse 

Service (Office of the USCG Historian, 1975); H. Kaplan and). Hunt, This Is the United States Coast Guard 

(Cambridge. Md.: Cornell Maritime Press. 197 1): Rodney H. Benson, "Romance and Story of Pea Island Sta· 

don." U.S. Coast Guard Magazi11e (November 1932):52: George Reasons and Sam Patrick, " Richard 

Ethcridge- Saved Sailors." Washington Star, November 13. 1971. For the position of Negroes on rhe eve of 

World War II induction, sec Enlistment of Men of Colored Race (201), 23 Jan 42, Hearings Before the General 

Board of the Navy. 1942. 
114 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

harassment drove the solitary black in the prewar crew of the cutter Calypso out 

of the service. 37 

Coast Guard officials were obviously mindful of such potential troubles 

when, at Secretary Knox's bidding, they joined in the General Board's discussion of the expanded use of Negroes in the general service in January 1942. In 

the name of the Coast Guard, Commander Lyndon Spencer agreed with the objections voiced by the Navy and the Marine Corps, adding that the Coast Guard 

problem was "enhanced somewhat by the fact that our units are small and contacts between the men are bound to be closer." He added that while the Coast 

Guard was not "anxious to take on any additional problems at this time, if we 

have to we will take some of them [Negroes).'' 38 

When President Roosevelt made it clear that Negroes were to be enlisted, 

Coast Guard Commandant Rear Adm. Russell R. Waesche had a plan ready. 

The Coast Guard would enlist approximately five hundred Negroes in the 

general service, he explained to the chairman of the General Board, Vice Adm. 

Walton R. Sexton. Some three hundred of these men would be trained for duty 

on small vessels, the rest for shore duty under the captain of the port of six cities 

throughout the United States. Although his plan made no provision for the 

training of black petty officers, the commandant warned Admiral Sexton that 

50 to 65 percent of the crew in these small cutters and miscellaneous craft held 

such ratings, and it followed that Negroes would eventually be allowed to try for 

such ratings.}? 

Further refining the plan for the General Board on 24 February, Admiral 

Waesche listed eighteen vessels, mostly buoy tenders and patrol boats, that 

would be assigned black crews. All black enlistees would be sent to the Manhattan Beach Training Station, New York, for a basic training "longer and more 

extensive" than the usual recruit training. After recruit training the men would 

be divided into groups according to aptitude and experience and would undergo 

advanced instruction before assignment. Those trained for ship duty would be 

grouped into units of a size to enable them to go aboard and assume all but the 

petty officer ratings of the designated ships. The commandant wanted to initiate this program with a group of 150 men. No other Negroes would be enlisted 

until the first group had been trained and assigned to duty for a period long 

enough to permit a survey of its pedormance. Admiral Waesche warned that the 

whole program was frankly new and untried and was therefore subject to 

modification as it evolved.40 

The plan was a major innovation in the Coast Guard's manpower policy. For 

the first time a number of Negroes, approximately 1.6 percent of the guard's 

37Inrerv, author with Capt W. C. Capron. USCGR, 20 Feb 75, CMH files. 38Enlistment of Men of Colored Race (201), 23 Jan 42, Hearings Before the General Board of the Navy. 

1942. 

39Memo, Cmdt, CG. for Adm Sexton, Chmn of Gen Bd. 2 Feb 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of the Colored 

Race in Other Than Messman Branch, attached w Enlistment of Men of Colored Race (201), 23 Jan 42. Hear· 

ings Before the General Board of the Navy, 1942. 40Memo, Cmdt, CG, for Chmn of Gen Bd, 24 Feb 42. sub: Enlistment of Men of the Colored Race in 

Other Than Messman Branch. P-70 1. attached to Recs of Gen Bd, No. 421 (Serial 204-X), OpNavArchives. 
WORLD WAR II: THE MARINE CORPS AND THE COAST GUARD 115 

total enlisted complement, would undergo regular recruit and specialized training.41 More than half would serve aboard ship at close quarters with their white 

petty officers. The rest would be assigned to port duty with no special provision 

for segregated service. If the provision for segregating nonrated Coast Guardsmen when they were at sea was intended to prevent the development of racial 

antagonism, the lack of a similar provision for Negroes ashore was puzzling; but 

whatever the Coast Guard's reasoning in the matter, the General Board was obviously concerned with the provisions for segregation in the plan. Its chairman 

told Secretary Knox that the assignment of Negroes to the captains of the portS 

was a practical use of Negroes in wartimt:, since these men could be segregated 

in service units. But their assignment to small vessels, Admiral Sexton added, 

meant that "the necessary segregation and limitation of authority would be increasingly difficult to maintain" and "opportunities for advancement would be 

few." For that reason, he concluded , the employment of such black crews was 

practical bur not desirable. 42· 

The General Board was overruled , and the Coast Guard proceeded to recruit 

its first group of 150 black volunteers, sending them to Manhattan Beach for 

basic training in the spring of 194 2. The small size of the black general service 

program precluded the establishment of a separate training station, but the 

Negroes were formed into a separate training company at Manhattan Beach. 

While training classes and other duty activities were integrated, sleeping and 

messing facilities were segregated. Although not geographically separated as 

were the black sailors at Camp Smalls or the marines at Montford Point, the 

black recruits of the separate training company at Manhattan Beach were effectively impressed with the reality of segregation in the armed forces. 43 

After taking a four-week basic course, those who qualified were trained as 

radiomen, pharmacists, yeomen, coxswains, fire controlmen, or in other skills in 

the seaman branch.44 Those who did not so qualify were transferred for further 

training in preparation for their assignment to the captains of the portS. Groups 

of black Coast Guardsmen, for example, were sent to the Pea Island Station 

after their recruit training for several weeks' training in beach duties. Similar 

groups of white recruits were also sent to the Pea Island Station for training 

under the black chief boatswain's mare in charge. ~ By August 1942 some three 

hundred Negroes had been recruited, trained, and assigned to general service 

duties under the new program. At the same time the Coast Guard continued to 

recruit hundreds of Negroes for irs separate S~eward's Branch. 

41Unlcss otherwise noted, all statistics on Coast Guard personnel arc derived from Memo, Chief, Statistical 

Services Div, for Chief. Pub Information Div, 30 Mar 54, sub: Negro Personnel, Officers and Enlisted; 

Number of, Office of the USCG HistOrian; and "Coast G uard Personnel Growth Chan, " Report of the 

Secretary of the Navy- Fiscal 194 5, p. A -1 :5. 42Mcmo, Chmn of Gen Bd for SccNav. 20 Mar 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of the Colored Race in Other 

Than Messman Branch, G .B. No. 421 (Serial204), OpNavArchives. 43Iotcrv, author with Ira H. Coakley, 2.6 Feb 75. CMH files. Coakley was a recruit in one of the first black 

training companies at Manhattan Beach. 

44For a brief account of the Coast Guard recruit training program, sec Nelson. "Integration of the 

Negro, " pp . 84-87, and "A Black History in World War!!, " Octagon (February 1972):31-32 . 

~)Log of Pea Island Station, 1942, Berry Collection, USCG Headquarters. 
116 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

The commandant's program for the orderly induction and assignment of a 

limited number of black volunteers was, as in the case of the Navy and Marine 

Corps, abruptly terminated in December 1942 when the President ended 

volunteer enlistment for most military personnel. For the rest of the war the 

Coast Guard, along with the Navy and Marine Corps. came under the strictures 

of the Selective Service Act, including its racial quota system. The Coast Guard, 

however, drafted relatively few men. issuing calls for a mere 22.500 and eventually inducting only 15,296. But more than 12 percent of its calls (2,500 men 

between February and November 1943) and 13 percent of all those drafted 

(1,667) were Negro. On the avera~e, 137 Negroes and 1,000 whites were inducted each month during 1943. 6 Just over 5,000 Negroes served as Coast 

Guardsmen in World War Il.47 

As it did for the Navy and Marine Corps, the sudden influx of Negroes from 

Selective Service necessitated a revision of the Coast Guard· s personnel planning. Many of the new men could be assigned to steward duties, but by January 

1943 the Coast Guard already had some 1,500 stewards and the branch could 

absorb only half of the expected black draftees. The rest would have to be 

assigned to the general service. 48 And here the organization and mission of the 

Coast Guard, far more so than those of the Navy and Marine Corps, militated 

against the formation of large segregated units. The Coast Guard had no use for 

the amorphous ammunition and depot companies and the large Seabee battalions of the rest of the naval establishment. For that reason the large percentage of its black seamen in the general service (approximately 37 percent of all 

black Coast Guardsmen) made a considerable amount of integration inevitable; 

the small number of Negroes in the general service (1,300 men, less than 1 percent of the total enlisted strength of the Coast Guard) made integration socially 

acceptable. 

The majority of black Coast Guardsmen were only peripherally concerned 

with this wartime evolution of racial policy. Some 2,300 Negroes served in the 

racially separate Steward's Branch, performing the same duties in officer messes 

and quarters as stewards in the Navy and Marine Corps. But not quite, for the 

size of Coast Guard vessels and their crews necessitated the use of stewards at 

more important battle stations. For example, a group of stewards under the 

leadership of a black gun captain manned the three-inch gun on the afterdeck of 

the cutter Campbell and won a citation for helping to destroy an enemy submarine in February 1943.49 The Personnel Division worked to make the separate 

Steward's Branch equal to the rest of the service in terms of promotion and 

emoluments, and there were instances when individual stewards successfully applied for ratings in general service. 0 Again, the close quarters aboard Coast 

46Sclcctivc Service System, Special Groups, 2:196-20 I. 

47

Tcstimony of Coast Guard Representatives Before the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment 

and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 18 Mar 49. p. 8. 

48USCG Public Relations Div, Negroes in the U.S. Coast Guard, July 1943. Office of the USCG Historian. 49Ltr, Cmdt, USCG. to Cmdr. Third CG District. 18 Jan )2, sub: ETHERIDGE. Louis C; ... Award of 

the Bronze Star Medal, Pl5, BuPersRccs; USCG Pub Rei Div. Negroes in the U.S. Coast Guard, Jul43. 

l 0USCG Pcrs Bull 37-42. 31 Mar 43, sub: Apprentice Seamen and Mess Attendants, Third Class, Ad· 

vanccmcnt of, USCG Ccn Files 6IA701 . 
WORLD WAR II: THE MARINE CORPS AND THE COAST GUARD 117 

STEWARDS AT BA TIU STATION on the afterdeck of the cttt~er Campbell. 

Guard vessels made the talents of stewards for general service duties more 

noticeable to officers. 51 The evidence suggests, however, that the majority of the 

black stewards, about 63 percent of all the Negroes in the Coast Guard, continued to function as servants throughout the war. As in the rest of the naval 

establishment, the stewards in the Coast Guard were set apart not only by their 

limited service but also by different uniforms and the fact that chief stewards 

were not regarded as chief petty officers. In fact, the rank of chief steward was 

not iotrod uced until the war led to an enlargement of the Coast Guard. 52 

The majority of black guardsmen in general service served ashore under the 

captains of the ports, local district commanders, or at headquarters 

establishments. Men in these assignments included hundreds in security and 

labor details, but more and more served as yeomen, radio operators, 

storekeepers, and the like. Other Negroes were assigned to local Coast Guard 

stations, and a second all-black station was organized during the war at Tiana 

Beach, New York. Still others participated in the Coast Guard's widespread 

) 11ntcrvs, author with Cmdt Carlton Skinner, USCGR. 18 Feb 7~. and with Capron, CMH files. 

Hfor discussion of limited service of Coast Guard stewards, sec Testimony of Coast Guard Representatives 

Before the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opponunity in the Armed Services, 18 Mar 

49. pp. 27-31. 
118 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

SHORE LEAVE IN SCOTIAN D. (The distinctive umjorm of the Coast Guard steward is 

shown.) 

beach patrol operations. Organized in 1942 as outposts and lookouts against 

possible enemy infiltration of the nation's extensive coastlines, the patrols 

employed more than 11 percent of all the Coast Guard's enlisted men. This 

large group included a number of horse and dog patrols employing only black 

guardsmen.H In all, some 2,400 black Coast Guardsmen served in the shore 

establishment. 

The assignment of so many Negroes to shore duties created potential problems for the manpower planners, who were under orders to rotate sea and shore 

assignments periodically. )

4 Given the many black general duty seamen denied 

sea duty because of the Coast Guard's segregation policy but promoted into the 

more desirable shore-based jobs to the detriment of whites waiting for rotation 

to such assignments, the possibility of serious racial trouble was obvious. 

At least one officer in Coast Guard headquarters was concerned enough to 

recommend that the policy be revised. With two years' service in Greenland 

waters, the last year as executive officer of the USCGC Northland, Lt. Carlton 

Skinner had firsthand experience with the limitations of the Coast Guard's 

racial policy. While on the Northland Skinner had recommended that a skilled 

HuscG Historical Section, The Coast Guard at War, 18:1-10, 36. 

HusCG Pcrs Bull44-42, 25 Jun 42, :sub: Relief of Personnel Assigned to Seagoing Units, USCG Cen Files 

61A701. 
WORLD WAR II: THE MARINE CORPS AND THE COAST GUARD 119 

black mechanic, then serving as a steward's mate, be awarded a motor mechanic 

petty officer rating only to find his recommendation rejected on racial grounds. 

The rating was later awarded after an appeal by Skinner, but the incident set the 

stage for the young officer's later involvement with the Coast Guard's racial 

traditions. On shore duty at Coast Guard headquarters in June 1943, Skinner 

recommended to the commandant that a group of black seamen be provided 

with some practical seagoing experience under a sympathetic commander in a 

completely integrated operation. He emphasized practical experience in an integrated setting, he later revealed, because he was convinced that men with high 

test scores and specialized training did not necessarily make the best sailors, 

especially when their training was segregated. Skinner envisioned a widespread 

distribution of Negroes throughout the Coast Guard's seagoing vessels. His 

recommendation was no "experiment in social democracy," he later stressed, 

but was a design for' 'an efficient use of manpower to help win a war.'·~~ 

Although Skinner's immediate superior forwarded the recommendation as 

"disapproved," Admiral Waesche accepted the idea. In November 1943 Skinner found himself transferred to the USS Sea Cloud (IX 99), a patrol ship 

operating in the North Atlantic as part of Task Force 24 reporting on weather 

conditions from four remote locations in northern waters. 6 The commandant 

also arranged for the transfer of black apprentice seamen, mostly from Manhattan Beach, to the Sea Cloud in groups of about twenty men, gradually increasing the number of black seamen in the ship's complement every time it returned to home station. Skinner, promoted to lieutenant commander and made 

captain of the Sea Cloud on his second patrol, later decided that the commandant had ''figured he could take a chance on me and the Sea Cloud. ''57 

It was a chance well taken. Before decommissioning in November 1944, the 

Sea Cloud served on ocean weather stations off the coasts of Greenland, Newfoundland, and France. It received no special treatment and was subject to the 

same tactical, operating, and engineering requirements as any other unit in the 

Navy's Atlantic Fleet. It passed two Atlantic Fleet inspections with no deficiencies and was officially credited with helping to sink a German submarine in June 

1944. The Sea Cloud boasted a completely integrated operation, its 4 black officers and some 50 black petty officers and seamen serving throughout the ship's 

173-man complement. 58 No problems of a racial nature arose on the ship, 

although its captain reported that his crew experienced some hostility in the 

various departments of the Boston Navy Yard from time to time. Skinner was 

determined to provide truly integrated conditions. He personally introduced his 

55Interv, author with Skinner; Lu, Skinner to author, 29 Jun 7~. in CMH files. The Skinner memorandum 

tO Admiral Waeschc, like so many of the personnel policy papers of the U.S. Coast Guard from the World 

War II period, cannot be located. For a detailed discussion of Skinner's motives and experiences, see his 

testimony before the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. 2~ Apr49, pp. 1-24. 

A unique vessel. the Sea Cloud was on loan tO the government for the duration of the war by its owner, 

the former Ambassador to Russia, Joseph Davies. Davies charged a nominal sum and extracted the promise 

that the vessel would be restored to its prewar condition as one of the world's most famous private yachts. 

57Jnterv, author with Skinner. 58Log of the Sea Cloud (IX 99), Aug-Nov 44, NARS, Suitland. 
120 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

COMMANDER SKINNER AND CREW OF THE US$ SEA CLOUD. Skinner officiates at 

awards ceremony. 

black officers into the local white officers' club, and he saw to it that when his 

men were temporarily detached for shore patrol duty they would go in integrated teams. Again, all these arrangements were without sign of racial incident. )9 

It is difficult to assess the reasons for the commandant's decision to organize 

an integrated crew. One senior personnel officer later suggested that the Sea 

Cloud was merely a public relations device designed to still the mounting 

criticism by civil rights spokesmen of the lack of sea duty for black Coast Guardsmen. 60 The public relations advantage of an integrated ship operating in the war 

zone must have been obvious to Admiral Waesche, although the Coast Guard 

made no effort to publicize the Sea Cloud. In fact, this absence of special attention had been recommended by Skinner in his original proposal to the commandant. Such publicity, he felt, would disrupt the military experiment and make it 

more difficult to apply generally the experience gained. 

The success of the Sea Cloud experiment did not lead to the widespread integration implied in Commander Skinner's recommendation. The only other 

extensively integrated Coast Guard vessel assigned to a war zone was the 

)9Jntcrv, author with Skjnncr. 60Intcrv. author with Rear Adm R. T. McElligott. 24 Feb 7), CMH files. For an example of the Coast 

Guard reaction to civil rights criticism. sec Ltr, USCG Public Relations Officer to Douglas Hall, Washington 

Ajro·llmerican, July 12, 1943. CG 051, Office of the USCG Historian . 
WORLD WAR II: THE MARINE CORPS AND THE COAST GUARD 121 

destroyer escort Hoquim, operating in 

1945 out of Adak in the Aleutian 

Islands, convoying shipping along the 

Aleutian chain. Again, the commander 

of the ship was Skinner. Nevertheless 

the practical reasons for Skinner's first 

recommendation must also have been 

obvious to the commandant, and the 

evidence suggests that the Sea Cloud 

project was but one of a series of 

liberalizing moves the Coast Guard 

made during the war, not only to still 

the criticism in the black community 

but also to solve the problems created 

by the presence of a growing number of 

black seamen in the general service. 

There is also reason to believe that the 

Coast Guard's limited use of racially 

mixed crews influenced the Navy's decision to integrate the auxiliary fleet in 

194 5. Senior naval officials studied a 

report on the Sea Cloud, and one of 

ENSIGN JENKINS AND LIEUTENANT 

SAMUELS. first black Coast Guard officers, on board the Sea Cloud. 

Secretary Forrestal' s assistants consulted Skinner on his experiences and their 

relation to greater manpower efficiency. 6t 

Throughout the war the Coast Guard never exhibited the concern shown by 

the other services for the possible disruptive effects if blacks outranked whites. 

As the war progressed, more and more blacks advanc<'d into petty officer ranks; 

by August 1945 some 965 Negroes, almost a third of their total number, were 

petty or warrant officers, many of them in the general service. Places for these 

trained specialists in any kind of segregated general service were extremely 

limited, and by the last year of the war many black petty officers could be found 

serving in mostly white crews and station complements. For example, a black 

pharmacist, second class, and a signalman, third class, served on the cutter 

Spencer, a black coxswain served on a cutter in the Greenland patrol, and other 

black petty officers were assigned to recruiting stations, to the loran program, 

and as instructors at the Manhattan Beach Training Station. 62 

The position of instructor at Manhattan Beach became the usual avenue to a 

commission for a Negro. Joseph C. Jenkins went from Manhattan Beach to the 

officer candidate school at the Coast Guard Academy, graduating as an ensign 

in the Coast Guard Reserve in April1943, almost a full year before Negroes were 

commissioned in the Navy. Clarence Samuels, a warrant officer and instructor at 

61 Ltr, Skinner to author. 2 Jun 7). 

62USCG Historical Section, The Coast Guard at War. 23:)3; Intcrvs. author with Lt Harvey C. Russell , 

USCGR. 14 Feb 75. and with Capron, CMH files. 
122 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Manhattan Beach, was commissioned as a lieutenant (junior grade) and assigned 

to the Sea Cloud in 1943. Harvey C. Russell was a signal instructor at Manhattan 

Beach in 1944 when all instructors were declared eligible to apply fbr commissions. At first rejected by the officer training school, Russell was finally admitted 

at the insistence of his commanding officer, graduated as an ensign, and was 

assigned to the Sea Cloud. 63 

These men commanded integrated enlisted seamen throughout die rest of 

the war. Samuels became the first Negro in this century to command a Coast 

Guard vessel in wartime, first as captain of Lightship No. 115 and later of the 

USCGC Sweetgum in the Panama Sea Frontier. Russell was transferred from the 

integrated Hoquim to serve as executive officer on a cutter operating out of the 

Philippines in the western Pacific, assuming command of the racially mixed 

crew shortly after the war. 

At the behest of the White House, the Coast Guard also joined with the 

Navy in integrating its Women's Reserve. In the fall of 1944 it recruited five 

black women for the SPARS. Only token representation, but understandable 

since the SPARS ceased all recruitment except for replacements on 23 November 

1944, just weeks after the decision to recruit Negroes was announced. Nevertheless the five women trained at Manhattan Beach and were assigned to various 

Coast Guard district offices without regard to race.64 

This very real progress toward equal treatment and opportunity for Negroes 

in the Coast Guard must be assessed with the knowledge that the progress was 

experienced by only a minuscule group. Negroes never rose above 2.1 percent of 

the Coast Guard's wartime population, well below the figures for the other services. This was because the other services were forced to obtain draft-age men, 

including a significant number of black inductees from Selective Service, 

whereas the Coast Guard ceased all inductions in early 1944. 

Despite their small numbers, however, the black Coast Guardsmen enjoyed 

a variety of assignments. The different reception accorded this small group of 

Negroes might, at least to some extent, be explained by the Coast Guard's tradition of some black participation for well over a century. To a certain extent this 

progress could also be attributed to the ease with which the directors of a small 

organization can reorder its policies.65 But above all, the different reception accorded Negroes in the Coast Guard was a small organization's practical reaction 

to a pressing assimilation problem dictated by the manpower policies common 

throughout the naval establishment. 

6l" A Black History in \XfWII." pp. 31-34. For an account of Samuels' long career in the Coast Guard, see 

Joseph Greco and Truman R. Strobridge, "Black Trailblazer Has Colorful Past," Ft/th Dimemion (3d 

Quarter, 1973): see also lnterv. author with Russell. 

64USCG Historical Section, The Coast Guard at \Xfar, 25:25. See also Oral History Interview, Dorothy C. 

Stratton, 24 Sep 70, Center of Naval History. 6)For discussion of this point, sec Testimony of Coast Guard Representatives Before rhe President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 18 Mar 49. pp. 25-26. 
CHAPTER 5 

A Postwar Search 

The nation's military leaders and the leaders of the civil rights movement 

were in rare accord at the end of World War II. They agreed that despite considerable wartime improvement the racial policies of the services had proved inadequate for the development of the full military potential of the country's 

largest minority as well as the efficient operation and management of the nation's armed forces. Dissatisfaction with the current policy of the armed forces 

was a spearpoint of the increasingly militant and powerful civil rights movement, and this dissatisfaction was echoed to a great extent by the services 

themselves. Intimate association with minority problems had convinced the 

Army's Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies and the Navy's Special 

Programs Unit that new policies had to be devised and new directions sought. 

Confronted with the incessant demands of the civil rights advo~ates and 

presented by their own staffs with evidence of trouble, civilian leaders of the 

services agreed to review the status of the Negro. As the postwar era opened, 

both the Army and the Navy were beginning the interminable investigations 

that augured a change in policy. 

Unfortunately, the services and the civil rights leaders had somewhat different ends in mind. Concerned chiefly with military efficiency but also accustomed to racial segregation or exclusion, most military leaders insisted on a 

rigid appraisal of the performance of segregated units in the war and ignored the 

effects of segregation on that performance. Civil rights advocates, on the other 

hand, seeing an opportunity to use the military as a vehicle for the extension of 

social justice, stressed the baneful effects of segregation on the black serviceman's morale. They were inclined to ignore the performance of the large 

segregated units and took issue with the premise that desegregation of the 

armed forces in advance of the rest of American society would threaten the efficient execution of the services' military mission. Neither group seemed able to 

appreciate the other's real concerns, and their contradictory conclusions promised a renewal of the discord in their wartime relationship. 

Black Demands 

World War II marked the beginning of an important step in the evolution of 

the civil rights movement. Until then the struggle for racial equality had been 

sustained chiefly by the ''talented tenth,'' the educated, middle-class black 

citizens who formed an economic and political alliance with white supporters. 
124 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Together they fought to improve the racial situation with some success in the 

courts, but with little progress in the executive branch and still less in the 

legislative. The efforts of men like W. E. B. DuBois, Walter White, and 

Thurgood Marshall of ·the NAACP and Lester Granger of the National Urban 

League were in the mainstream of the American reform movement, whkh 

stressed an orderly petitioning of government for a redress of grievances. 

But there was another facet to the American reform tradition, one that 

stressed mass action and civil disobedience, and the period between the March 

on Washington Movement in 1940 and the threat of a black boycott of the draft 

in 1948 witnessed the beginnings of a shift in the civil rights movement to this 

kind of reform tactic. The articulate leaders of the prewar struggle were still active, and in fact would make their greatest contribution in the fight that led to 

the Supreme Court's pronouncement on school segregation in 1954. But their 

quiet methods were already being challenged by A. Philip Randolph and others 

who launched a sustained demand for equal treatment and opportunity in the 

armed forces during the early postwar period. Randolph and leaders of his persuasion relied noc so much on legal eloquence in their representations to the 

federal government as on an understanding of bloc voting in key districts and 

the implicit threat of civil disobedience. The civil rights campaign, at least in 

the effort to end segregation in the armed forces, had the appearance of a mass 

movement a full decade before a weary Rosa Parks boarded a Montgomery bus 

and set off the all-embracing crusade of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The growing political power of the Negro and the threat of mass action in 

the 1940's were important reasons for the breakthrough on the color front that 

began in the armed forces in the postwar period. For despite the measure of 

good will and political acumen that characterized his social programs, Harry S. 

Truman might never have made the effort to achieve racial equality in the services without the constant pressure of civil rights activists. 

The reasons for the transformation that was beginning in the civil rights 

struggle were varied and complex. 1 Fundamental was the growing urbanization 

of the Negro. By 1940 almost half the black population lived in cities. As the 

labor shortage became more acute during the next five years, movement toward 

the cities continued, not only in the south but in the north and west. Attracted 

by economic opportunities in Los Angeles war industries, for example, over 

1,000 Negroes moved to that city each month during the war. Detroit, Seattle, 

and San Francisco, among others, reported similar migrations. The balance 

finally shifted during the war, and the 1950 census showed that 56 percent of 

1

This discussion is based in great part on Arnold M. Rose. ''The American Negro Problem in the Context 

of Social Change," 1\nmzls of the A&ademy of Political Science 25 7 (January 1965): 1-17; Rustin. Strategies for 

Freedom, pp. 26-46; Leonard Broom and Norval Glenn. Tram/ormation of the Negro American (New York: 

Harper and Row. 1965); St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton. Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Ltje in a 

Northern City (New York: HarcouH Brace, 1970); John Hope Franklin. From Slavery to Freedom:/\ History of 

Negro America, 3d cd. (New York: Knopf, 1967); Woodward's The Strange Career of jim Crow; Seymour 

Wolfbein, "Postwar Trends in Negro Employment," a report by the Occupational Outlook Division, Bureau 

of Labor Statistics, in CMH; Oscar Handlin, "The Goals of Integration," and Kenneth B. Clark, "The Civil 

Rights Movement: Momentum and Organization," both in Daedalus 95 (Winter 1966). 
A POSTWAR SEARCH 125 

the black population resided in metropolitan areas, 32 percent in cities of the 

north and west. 2 

This mass migration, especially to cities outside the south, was of profound 

importance to the future of American race relations. It meant first that the black 

masses were separating themselves from the archaic social patterns that had 

ruled their lives for generations. Despite virulent discrimination and prejudice 

in northern and western cities, Negroes could vote freely and enjoy some protection of the law and law-enforcement machinery. They were free of the burden of 

Jim Crow. Along with white citizens they were given better schooling, a major 

factor in improving status. The mass migration also meant that this part of 

America's peasantry was rapidly joining America's proletariat. The wartime 

shortage of workers, coupled with the efforts of the Fair Employment Practices 

Committee and other government agencies, opened up thousands of jobs 

previously denied black Americans. The number of skilled craftsmen, foremen, 

and semiskilled workers among black Americans rose from 500,000 to over 

1,000,000 during the war, while the number of Negroes working for the federal 

government increased from 60,000 to 200,000. 3 

Though much of the increase in black employment was the result of temporarily expanded· wartime industries, black workers gained valuable training 

and experience that enabled them to compete more effectively for postwar jobs. 

Employment in unionized industries strengthened their position in the postwar 

labor movement. The severity of inevitable postwar cuts in black employment 

was mitigated by continued prosperity and the sustained growth of American 

industry. Postwar industrial development created thousands of new upper-level 

jobs, allowing many black w0rkers to continue their economic advance without 

replacing white workers and without the attendant development of racial tensions. 

The armed forces played their part in this change. Along with better food, 

pay, and living conditions provided by the services, many Negroes were given 

new work experiences. Along with many of their white fellows, they acquired 

new skills and a new sophistication that prepared them for the different life of 

the postwar industrial world. Most important, military service in World War II 

divorced many Negroes from a society whose traditions had carefully defined 

their place, and exposed them for the first time tO a community where racial 

equality, although imperfectly realized, was an ideal. Out of thjs experience 

many Negroes came to understand that their economic and political position 

could be changed. Ironically, the services themselves became an early target of 

this rising self-awareness. The integration of the armed forces, immediate and 

total, was a popular goal of the newly franchised voting group, which was turning away from leaders of both races who preached a philosophy of gradual 

change. · 

2For a discussion of this trend, sec Bureau of Labor Statistics, ' 'Social and Economic Conditions of Negroes 

in the United States" (Current Population Reports P23. October 1967); sec also Charles S. Johnson, "The 

Negro Minority," Annals of the Academy of Political Science 223 (September 1942):10-16. 3Selective Service System, Special Groups, vol. I. pp. 177-78; see also Robert C. Weaver, "Negco Labor 

Since 1929." The journal of Negro History 35 (January 1950):20-38. 
126 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

The black press was spokesman for the widespread demand for equality in 

the armed forces; just as the growth of the black press was dramatically 

stimulated by urbanization of the Negro, so was the civil rights movement 

stimulated by the press. The Pittsburgh Courier was but one of many black 

papers and journals that developed a national circulation and featured countless 

articles on the su bject of discrimination in the services. One black sociologist 

observed that .it was "no exaggeration to say that the Negro press was the major 

influence in mobilizing Negroes in the struggle for their rights during World 

War II. " 4 Sometimes inaccurate, often inflammatory, and always to the consternation of the military, the black press rallied the opposition to segregation during and after the war. 

Much of the black unrest and dissatisfaction dramatized by the press continued to be mobilized through the efforts of such organizations as the National 

Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Urban 

League, and the Congress of Racial Equality. The NAACP, for example, 

revitalized by a new and broadened appeal to the black masses, had some 1,200 

branches in forty-three states by 1946 and boasted a membership of more than· 

half a million. While the association continued to fight for minority rights in 

the courts, to stimulate black political participation, and to impro've the conditions of Negroes generally, its most popular activity during the 1940's was its effort to eliminate discrimination in the armed forces. The files of the services and 

the White House are replete with NAACP complaints, requests, demands, and 

charges that involved the military departments in innumerable investigations 

and justifications. If the complaints effected little immediate change in policy, 

they at least dramatized the plight of black servicemen and mobilized demands 

for reform.) 

Not all racial unrest was so constructively channeled during the war. Riots 

and mutinies in the armed services were echoed around the country. In Detroit 

competition between blacks and whites, many recently arrived from the south 

seeking jobs, culminated in June 1943 in the most serious riot of the decade. 

The President was forced to declare a state of emergency and dispatch 6,000 

troops to patrol the city. The Detroit riot was only the most noticeable of a 

number of racial incidents that inevitably provoked an ugly reaction, and the 

postwar period witnessed an increase in antiblack sentiment and violence in the 

United States.6 Testifying to the black community's economic and political progress during the war as well as a corresp·o,nding increase in white awareness of 

and protest against the mistreatment of black citizens, this antiblack sentiment 

was only the pale ghost of a similar phenomenon after World War I. 

Nevertheless, the sentiment was widespread. Traveling cross-country in a 

train during Chr.istmastime, 1945, the celebrated American essayist Bernard De 

~E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro tit the United States (New York: Macmillan, 19H). p. 513. 

)Clark, "The Civil Rights Movement," pp. 240-47. 

6Report of the National Ad11iJory Commi.m(m 011 Civil Dtsorders, 1 March 1968, Kerner Report 

(Washingron: Government Printing Office, 1968), pp. 104-05; sec also Dalfiume, Desegregation of the U.S. 

Armed florces, pp. 132-34. For a detailed account of the major riot, sec R. Shogan and T. Craig, The Detroit 

Race Riot: A Study i11 Vi'ole11ce (New York: Chilton Books, 1964). 
A POSTWAR SEARCH 127 

PRESIDENT TRUMAN ADDRESSING THE NAACP CONVENTION. Lincoln Memorial, 

Washington, D. C., June 1947. Seated at the President's left are Walter White, 

Eleanor Roosevelt, and Senator Wayne Morse; v£sible in the rear row are Admiral 

of the Fleet Chester W. Nimitz, Attorney General Tom C. Clark, and Chief 

justice Fred M. Vinson. 

Voto was astonished to hear expressions of antiblack sentiment. In Wisconsin, 

''a state where I think I had never before heard the word 'nigger,' that [dining] 

car was full of talk about niggers and what had to be done about them. " 7 A 

white veteran bore out the observation. "Anti-Negro talk ... is cropping up in 

many places .. . the assumption [being] that there is more prejudice, never 

less .... Throughout the war the whites were segregated from the Negroes 

(why not say it this way for a change?) so that there were almost no occasions for 

white soldiers to get any kind of an impression of Negroes, favorable or otherwise.'' There had been some race prejudice among servicemen, but, the veteran 

asked, "What has caused this anti-Negro talk among those who stayed at 

home?"8 About the same time, a U.S. senator was complaining to the Secretary 

7Bcrnard De Voto, "The Easy Chair," Harper's 192 (January 1946): 38-39. 

8Ltr, John H. Caldwell (Hansdalc, New York) to rhe Editor. Harper's 192 (March 1946): unnumbered 

front pages. 
128 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES , 1940-1965 

of War that white and black civilians at Kelly Field, Texas, shared the same 

cafeterias and other facilities. He hoped the secretary would look into the matter 

to prevent disturbances that might grow out of a policy of this sort.9 

Nor did the armed forces escape the rise in racial tension. For example, the 

War Department received many letters from the public and members of Congress when black officers, near~y the base's entire contingent of four hundred, 

demonstrated against the segregation of the officers' club at Freeman Field, Indiana, in April 1945. The question at issue was whether a post commander had 

the authority to exclude individuals on grounds of race from recreational 

facilities on an Army post. The Army Air Forces supported the post commander 

and suggested a return to a policy of separate and equal facilities for whites and 

blacks, primarily because a club for officers was a social center for the entire 

family. Since it was hardly an accepted custom in the country for the races tQ intermingle, officials argued, the Army had to follow rather than depart from 

custom, and, further, the wishes of white officers as well as those of Negr·oes 

deserved consideration. 10 

The controversy reached the desk of John McCloy, the Assistant Secretary of 

War, who considered the position taken by the Army Air Forces a backward 

step, a reversal of the War Department position in an earlier and similar case at 

Selfridge Field, Michigan. McCloy's contention prevailed-that the commander's administrative discretion in these matters fell short of authority to exclude individuals from the right to enjoy recreational facilities provided by the 

federal government or maintained with its funds. Secretary of War Stimson 

agreed to amend the basic policy to reflect this clarification. 11 

In December 1945 the press reported and the War and Navy Departments 

investigated an incident at Le Havre, France, where soldiers were embarking for 

the United States for demobilization. Officers of a Navy escort carrier objected 

to the inclusion of 123 black enlisted men on the grounds that the ship was 

unable to provide separate accommodations for Negroes. Army port authorities 

then substituted another group that included only one black officer and five 

black enlisted men who were placed aboard over the protests of the ship's officers. 12 The Secretary of the Navy had already declared that the Navy did not 

9Lrr, Sen. W. Lee O'Daniel of Texas to SW, 27 Feb 46, ASW 291.2 (1946). 1

G-rhis important incident in the Air Force's racial history has been well documented. See AAF Summary 

Sheet,~ May 45, sub: Racial incidents at Freeman Field and Ft. Huachuca, Arizona, and Memo. Maj Gen H. 

R. Harmon, ACofS, AAF, for DCofS, 29 May 45, both in WDGAP 291.2. See also Memo, The Inspector 

General for DCofS, 1 May 45, sub: Investigation at Freeman Field, WDSIG 291.2 Freeman Field , and Memo. 

Truman Gibson for ASW, 14 May 45. ASW 291.2 NT. For a critical contemporary analysis, see Hq Air 

Defense Command, "The Training of Negro Combat Units by the First Air Force" (Monograph III. May 

1946). vol. I, ch. III. AFSHRC. The incident is also discussed in Osur, Blacks in the Army Air Forces During 

World War II, ch. VI, and in Alan L. Gropman's The Air Force Integrates, 194J-J964 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1978). Gropmao's work is the major source for the history of Negroes in the postwar Air 

Force. 11Memo, ASW for SW, 4 Jun 45; Memo, SGS for DCofS. 7 }un 4~. sub: Repon of Advisory Committee on 

Special Troop Policies. both in ASW 291.2 (NT). 12

0PD Summary Sheet to CofS. 2 Apr 16, CS 29 1. 2 Negroes: Memo, WD Bureau of Public Relations for 

Press. 5 Jan 46; Ltr, Exec to Actg ASW toP. 13crnard Young, Jr .. Norfolkjoumal and Guide, 11 Dec 45, ASW 

291.2. 
A POSTWAR SEARCH 129 

differentiate between men on account of race, and on 12 December 1945 he 

reiterated his statement, adding that it applied to members of all the armed 

forces. 

13 Demonstrating the frequent gap between policy and practice, Forreseal's order was ignored six months later by port officials when a group of black 

officers and men was withdrawn from a shipping list at Bremerhaven, Germany, 

on the grounds that ''segregation is a War Department policy.'' 14 

Overt antiblack behavior and social turbulence in the civilian community 

also reached into the services. In February 1946 Issac Woodard, Jr. , who had 

served in the Army for fifteen months in the Pacific, was ejected from a commercial bus and beaten by civilian police. Sergeant Woodard had recently been 

discharged from the Army at Camp Gordon, Georgia, and was still in uniform 

at the time of the brutal attack that blinded him. His case was quickly taken up 

by the NAACP and became the centerpiece of a national protest.

15 Not only did 

the civil rights spokesmen protest the sadistic blinding, they also charged that 

the Army was incapable of protecting its own members in the community. 

While service responsibility for countering off-base discrimination against 

servicemen was still highly debatable in 1946, the right of men on a military 

base to protection was uncontestable. Yet even service practices on military bases 

were under attack as racial conflicts and threats of .violence multiplied . "Dear 

Mother, " one soldier stationed at Sheppard Field, Texas, felt compelled ro write 

in early 1946, "I don't know how long I'll stay whole because when those 

Whites come over to start (trouble] again I'll be right with the rest of the 

fellows. Nothing to worry about. Love, .. . " 16 If the soldier's letter revealed 

continuing racial conflict in the service, it also testified to a growing racial unity 

among black servicemen that paralleled the trend in the black community. 

When Negroes could resolve with a new self-consciousness to' 'be right with the 

rest of the fellows,'' their cause was immeasurably strengthened and their goals 

brought appreciably nearer. 

Civil rights spokesmen had several points to make regarding the use of 

Negroes in the postwar armed forces. Referring to the fact that World War II 

began with Negroes fighting for the right to fight, they demanded that the services guarantee a fair representation of Negroes in the postwar forces. Furthermore, to avoid the frustration suffered by Negroes trained for combat and then 

converted into service troops, they demanded that Negroes be trained and 

employed in all military specialties. They particularly stressed the correlation 

between poor leaders and poor units. The services' command practices, they 

charged, had frequently led to the appointment of the wrong men, either black 

or white, to command black units. Their principal solution was to provide for 

the promotion and proper employment of a proportionate share of competent 

black offi<:ers and noncommissioned officers. Above all, they pointed to the 

1

3ALNAV 423- 45, 12 Dec45. 14Memo, Marcus H. Ray. Civ Aide to S.W, for ASW, 11 Jun 46, ASW 291.2 (Nn. 15

See Ltr, Walter White , Secy. NAACP, to SW , 6 May 46, and a host of letters in SW 291.2 file . See also 

copies of NAACP press rel eases on the subject in CMH files. 16Ltr, 28 Feb 46, copy in SW 29 1.2. 
130 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY MCCLOY 

humiliations black soldiers suffered in 

the community outside the limits of the 

base. 17 One particularly telling example 

of such discrimination that circulated in 

the black press in 1945 described German prisoners of war being fed in a 

railroad restaurant while their black Army guards were forced co eat outside. 

But such discrimination coward black 

servicemen was hardly unique, and the 

civil rights advocates were quick to 

point to the connection between such 

practices and low morale and performance. For them there was bur one 

answer to such discrimination: all men 

must be treated as individuals and 

guaranteed equal treatment and opportunity in the services. In a word, the 

armed forces must integrate. They 

pointed with pride to the success of 

those black soldiers who served in integrated units in the last months of the European war, and they repeatedly urged the complete abolition of segregation in the peacetime Army and Navy. 18 

When an executive of the National Urban League summed up these 

demands for President Truman at the end of the war, he clearly indicated that 

the changes in military policy that had brought about the gradual improvement 

in the lot of black servicemen during the war were now beside the point. 19 The 

military might try to ignore this fact for a little while longer; a politically sensitive President was not about to make such an error. 

The Army's Grand Review 

In the midst of this intensifying sentiment for integration, in fact a full year 

before the war ended, the Army began to search for a new racial policy. The invasion of Normandy and the extraordinary advance co Paris during the summer 

of 1944 had led many to believe that the war in Europe would soon be over, 

perhaps by fall. As the Allied leaders at the Quebec Conference in September 

discussed arrangements to be imposed on a defeated Germany, American officials in Washington began to consider plans for the postwar period. Among 

them was Assistant Secretary of War McCloy. Dissatisfied with the manner in 

which the Army was using b lack troops, McCloy believed it was time to start 

17

For a summary of these views. sec Warman Welliver. "Report on the Negro Soldier." Harper'J 192 

(April 1946):333-38 and back pages. 18Murray, Negro Handbook, 1946-1947, pp. 369-70. 

19Lu, Exec Secy, National Urban League. to President Truman, 27 Aug 4~. copy in Forrcstal file, 

GcnRecsNav. 
A POSTWAR SEARCH 

planning how best to employ them in 

the postwar Army, which, according tO 

current assumptions, would be small 

and professional and would depend 

upon a citizen reserve to augment it in 

an emergency. 

McCloy concluded that despite a 

host of prewar studies by the General 

Staff, the Army War College, and other 

military agencies, the Army was unprepared during World War II to deal 

with and make the most efficient use of 

the large numbers of Negroes furnished 

by Selective Service. Policies for training 

and employing black troops had 

developed in response to specific problems rather than in accordance with a 

well thought out and comprehensive 

plan. Because of "inadequate preparation prior to the period of sudden expansion," McCloy believed a great 

131 

TRUMAN GIBSON 

many sources of racial irritation persisted. To develop a "definite, workable 

policy, for the inclusion and utilization in the Army of minority racial groups" 

before postwar planning crystallized and solidified, McCloy suggested to his 

assistants that the War Department General Staff review existing practices and 

experiences at home and abroad and recommend changes. 20 

The Chief of Staff, General Marshall, continued to insist that the Army's 

racial problem was but part of a larger national problem and, as McCloy later 

recalled, had no strong views on a solution. 21 Whatever his personal feelings, 

Marshall, like most Army staff officers, always emphasized efficiency and performance to the exclusion of social concerns. While he believed that the limited 

scope of the experiment with integrated platoons coward the end of the war in 

Europe made the results inconclusive, Marshall still wanted the platoons' performance considered in the general staff study. 22 

The idea of a staff study on the postwar use of black troops also found favor 

with Secretary Stimson, and a series of conferences and informal discussions on 

the best way to go about it took place in the highest echelons of the Army during the early months of 1945. The upshot was a decision to ask the senior commanders at home and overseas for their comments. How did they train and use 

their black troops? What irritations, frictions, and disorders arising from racial 

20 mos~ McCloy for Advisory Commiuee on Special Troop Policies, 31 Jul and I Sep 44. sub: Parlidpa· 

tion of Negro Troops in rhe Post-War Military Establishment; Memo, ASW for SW. 10 Jan 45, same sub, all in 

ASW 291 .2 (Nn. 21Ltr, John J. McCloy to author, 18 Sep 69. CMH files. 22Mcmo, CofS for McCloy, 25 Aug 4). WDCSA 291.2 Negroes (25 Aug 45). 
132 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES , 1940-1965 

conflicts had hampered their operations? What were their recommendations on 

how best to use black troops after the war? Two weeks after the war ended in 

Europe, a letter with an attached questionnaire was sene to senior 

commanders. 23 The questionnaire asked for such information as: "To what extent have you maintained segregation beyond the actual unit level, and what is 

your recommendation on this subject? If you have employed Negro platoons in 

the same company with white platoons, what is your opinion of the practicability of this arrangement?'' 

Not everyone agreed that the questionnaire was the best way to review the 

performance of Negroes in World War II. Truman Gibson, for one, doubted 

the value of soliciting information from senior commanders, feeling that these 

officers would offer much subjective material of little real assistance. Referring 

to the letter to the major senior commanders, he said: 

Mere injunctions of objectivity do not work in the racial field where more often than not 

decisions are made on a basis of emotion, prejudice or pre-existing opinion .... Much 

of the difficulty in the Army has arisen from improper racial attitudes on both sides. Indeed, the Army's basic policy of segregation is said to be based principally on the individual attitudes and desires of the soldiers. 

But who knew what soldiers' attitudes were? Why not, he suggested, make 

some scientific inquiries? Why not try to determine, for example, how far public 

opinion and pressure would permit the Army to go in developing policies for 

black troops? 24 

Gibson had become, perforce, an expert on public opinion. During the last 

several months he had suffered the slings and arrows of an outraged black press 

for his widely publicized analysis of the performance of black troops. Visiting 

black units and commanders in the Mediterranean and European theaters to 

observe, in McCloy's words, "the performance of Negro troops, their attitudes, 

and the attitudes of their officers toward them, " 25 Gibson had arrived in Italy at 

the end of February 1945 to find theater officials concerned over the poor combat record of the 92d Infantry Division, the only black division in the theater 

and one of three activated by the War Department. After a series of discussions 

with senior commanders and a visit to the division, Gibson participated in a 

press conference in Rome during which he spoke candidly of the problems of the 

division's infantry unirs. 26 Subsequent news reports of the conference stressed 

Gibson's confirmation of the division's disappointing performance, but 

neglected the reasons he advanced co explain its failure. The reports earned a 

23Ltr. TAG to CinC. Southwest Pacific Area. et al., 23 May 45. sub: Participation of Negro Troops in PostWar Military Establishment. AG 291.2 (23 May 45). On the high-level discussions, see Memo. Maj Gen W. F. 

Tompkins. Dir, Special Planning Div, for ACofS. G-1, and Personnel Officers of rhe Air, Ground. and Service Forces. 24 Feb 45. same sub; OF. G-1, WDGS (Col 0. G. Haywood, Exec), 8 Mar 45. same sub; Memo, 

Col G. E. Textor, Dep Dir. WDSSP. for ACofS. G-1, 10 Mar45. same sub; Memo for the File (Col Lawrence 

Westbrook), 16 Mar 45: Memo, Maj Belli. Wiley for Col Mathews, 18 Apr 45. all in AG 291.2. 

24Memo. Gibson for ASW, 30 May 4 5. ASW 291.2 (N'D. 2

)Ltr, Gibson to Gen John C. H. Lee, CG. ComZ, ETOUSA. 31 Mar 45. ASW 291.2 (NT). 26Mcmo, Truman Gibson for Maj Gcn 0 . L. Nelson. 12 Mar 45, sub: Report on Visit to 92d Division 

(Negro Troops). ASW 291 .2. 
A POSTWAR SEARCH 133 

swift and angry retort from the black community. Many organizations and journals condemned Gibson's evaluation of the 92d outright. Some seemed less 

concerned with the possible accuracy of his statement than with the effects it 

might have on the development of future military policy. The NAACP's Crisis, 

for example, charged that Gilbson had "carried the ball for the War Department,'' and that ''probably no more unfortunate words, affecting the representatives of the entire race , were ever spoken by a Negro in a key position in such a 

critical hour. We seem destined to bear the burden of Mr. Gibson's Rome 

adventure for many years to come.' '

27 

Other black journals took a more detached view of the situation, asserting 

that Gibson's remarks revealed nothing new and that the problem was segregation, of which the 92d was a notable victim. Gibson took this tack in his own 

defense, pointing to the irony of a situation in which "some people can, on the 

one hand, argue that segregation is wrong, and on the other . . . blindly defend the product of that segregation.' '

28 

Gibson had defenders in the Army whose comments might well apply to all 

the large black units in the war. At one extreme stood the Allied commander in 

Italy, General Mark W. Clark, who attributed the 92d's shortcomings to "our 

handling of minority problems at home.'' Most of all, General Clark thought, 

black soldiers needed the incentive of feeling that they were fighting for home 

and country as equals. But his conclusion- '' only the proper environment in his 

own country can provide such an incentive'' -neatly played down Army responsibility for the division's problems. 29 

Another officer, who as commander of a divisional artillery unit was intimately acquainted with the division's shortcomings, delineated an entirely different set of causes. The division was doomed to mediocrity and worse, Lt. Col. 

Marcus H. Ray concluded, from the moment of its activation. Undercurrents of 

racial antipathy as well as distrust and prejudice, he believed, infected the 

organization from the outset and created an unhealthy beginning. The practice 

of withholding promotion from deserving black officers along with preferential 

assignments for white officers prolonged the malady. The basic misconception 

was that southern white officers understood Negroes; under such officers 

Negroes who conformed with the southern stereotype were promoted regardless 

of their abilities, while those who exhibited self-reliance and selfrespect-necessary attributes of leadership-were humiliated and discouraged 

for their uppitiness. "I was astounded," he said, "by the willingness of the 

white officers who preceded us to place their own lives in a hazardous position in 

order to have tractable Negroes around them." 30 In short, the men of the 92d 

who fought and died bravely should be honored, but their unit, which on 

27 ' 'Negro Soldier Betrayed,'' Crisis 52 (April 1945) :97; ''Gibson Echo,'' ibid. (July 1945): 193. 28Washington Afro-American, April 15, 1945, quoted in Lee, Employmmt of Negro Troops, p. 579. For 

details of the Gibson controversy, see Lee, pp. 575-79. 2

9Mark W. Clark. A Calculated Risk (New York: Harper & Brothers. 1950), pp. 414- 15 . 

3°Lrr, Ray to Gibson, 14 May 45, WDGAP 291.2. Ray later succeeded Gibson as Civilian Aide to the 

Secretary of War. 
134 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

COMPANY l, 370TH INFANTRY, 920 

DIVISION. advances through Cascit1a, 

Italy. 

balance did not perform well, should be 

considered a failure of white leadership . 

Lt. Gen. Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., 

then Fifth Army commander in Italy, 

disagreed. Submitting the proceedings 

of a board of review that had 

investigated the effectiveness of black 

officers and enlisted men in the 92d 

Division, he was sympathetic to the 

frustrations encountered by the division 

commander, Maj. Gen. Edward M. 

Almond. "In justice to those splendid 

officers'' -a reference to the white 

senior commanders and staff members 

of the division- 11Who have devoted 

themselves without stint in an endeavor 

to produce a combat division with 

Negro personnel and who have approached this problem without prejudice," Truscott endorsed the board's 

hard view that many infantrymen in che 

division " would not fight. " 31 This conclusion was in direct conflict with the 

widely held and respected truism chat competent leadership solved all problems, from which it followed that the answer to the problem of Negroes in combat was command. Good commanders prevented friction, performed their mission effectively, and achieved success no matter what the obstacles-a view put 

forth in a typical report from World War II that "the efficiency of Negro units 

depends entirely on the leadership of officers and NCO's. " 32 

In fact, General Truscott's analysis of the 92d Division's problems seemed at 

variance with his analysis of command problems in other units, as illustrated by 

his later attention co problems in the all-white 34th Infantry Division. 33 The 

habit of viewing unit problems as command problems was also demonstrated by 

General Jacob L. Devers, who was deputy Allied commander in the Mediterranean when the 92d arrived in Italy. Reflecting Iacer upon the 92d Division, 

General Devers agreed that its engineer and armor unit performed well, but the 

infantry did not I I becallse their commanders weren It good enough.' 134 

31 1st Ind. Hq Fifth Army (signed l. K. Truscott, Jr.). 30 Jul45, to Proceedings and Board of Review, 92d 

lnf Div, Fifth Army files. 

32WD file 291.2 (Negro Troop Policy). 1943-1945. is full of statements to this effect. The quote is from 

2d Ind. Hq USASTAF, 26 Jul45, attached to AAF Summary Sheets w CofS. 17 Sep 45, sub: Participation of 

Ne!!{o Troops in the Posr-War Milirary Establishment, AG 291.2 (23 May 4 5). 3L. K. Truscott, Jr., Command Miuions: A Personal Story (New York: Dutton, 1959). sec pages 461-62 

and 471-72 for comparison of Truscott's critical ana lysis of problems of the 34th and 92d Infantry Divisions. 

l

41merv, author with General Jacob Devers, 30 Mar 71. CMH files. 
A POSTWAR SEARCH 135 

Years later General Almond, the division's commander, was to claim that 

the 92d Division had done "many things well and some things poorly." It 

fought in extremely rugged terrain against a determined enemy over an exceptionally broad front. The division's artillery as well as its technical and administrative units performed well. Negroes also excelled in intelligence work 

and in dealing with the Italian partisans. On the other hand, General Almond 

reported, infantry elements were unable to close with the enemy and destroy 

him. Rifle squads, platoons, and companies tended "to melt away" when confronted by determined opposition. Almond blamed this on "a lack of dedication to purpose, pride of accomplishment and devotion to duty and teammates 

by the majority of black riflemen assigned to Infantry Units. "H 

Similar judgments were expressed concerning the combat capability of the 

other major black unit, the 93d Infantry Division.36 When elements of the 93d, 

the 25th Regimental Combat Team in particular, participated in the Bougainville campaign in the Solomon Islands, their performance was the subject of 

constant scrutiny by order of the Chief of Staf£.37 The combat record of the 25th 

included enough examples of command and individual failure to reinforce the 

War Department's decision in mid-1944 to use the individual units of the division in security, laboring, and training duties in quiet areas of the theater, leaving combat to more seasoned units. 38 During the last year of the war the 93d 

performed missions that were essential but not typical for combat divisions. 

Analyses of the division's performance ran along familiar lines. The XIV 

Corps commander, under whom the division served, rated the performance of 

the 25th Regimental Combat Team infantry as fair and artillery as good, but 

found the unit, at least those pares commanded by black officers, lacking in initiative, inadequately trained, and poorly disciplined. Other reporrs tended to 

agree. All of them, along with reports on the 24th Infantry, another black unit 

serving in the area, were assembled in Washington for Assistant Secretary McCloy. While he admitted important limitations in the performance of the units, 

McCloy nevertheless remained encouraged. Not so the Secretary of War. "I do 

not believe," he told McCloy, "they can be turned into really effective combat 

troops without all officers being white.'' 39 

Black officers of the 93d , however, entertained a different view. They 

generally cited command and staff inefficiencies as the major cause of the division's discipline and morale problems. One respondent, a company commander 

HLtr, Lt Gcn Edward M. Almond to Brig Gcn James L. ,Collins, Jr., I Apr 72, CMH fi les. General AI· 

mond's views are thoroughly explored in Paul Goodman, A Frag11tent of Victory (Army War College, 1952). 

For an objective and detailed treatment of the 92d Division, sec Lee, Employment of Negro Troops, Chapter 

XIX, and Ernest F. Fisher. Jr., Cauino lo the Alps, United States Army in World War II (WashingtOn: 

Government Printing Office, 1977), Chapter XXIII. 

36 A third black division, the 2d Cavalry, never saw combat because it was disbanded upon arrival in the 

Mediterranean theater. 37Rad , Marshall to Lt Gen Millard Harmon, CG, USAFISPA, 18 Mar44, CM- OUT 7514 (IS Mar44). 38Lce, Emp/oymet/1 of Negro Troops, pp. 498-) 17. Lee discusses here the record of the 93d infantry Divi· 

sion and War Department decisions concerning its usc. 

39The above digested reports and quotations arc from Lee, Employmetll of Negro Troops, pp. 513-17. 
136 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

92D DIVISION ENGINEERS PREPARE A FORD FOR ARNO RIVER TRAFFIC 

in the 25th Infantry, singled out the "continuous dissension and suspicion 

characterizing the relations between white and colored officers of the division.'' 

All tended to stress what they considered inadequate jungle training, and, like 

many white observers, they all agreed the combat period was too brief to 

demonStrate the division's developing ability. 

40 

Despite the performance of some individuals and units praised by all, the 

combat performance of the 92d and 93d Infantry Divisions was generally considered less than satisfactory by most observers. A much smaller group of commentators, mostly black journalists, never accepted the prevailing view. Pointing to the decorations and honors received by individuals in the two divisions, 

they charged that the adverse reportS were untrue, reflections of the prejudices 

of white officers. Such an assertion presupposed that hundreds of officers and 

War Department officials were so consumed with prejudice that they falsified 

the record. And the argument from decorations, as one expert later pointed out, 

40USAFFE Board Reports No. 185, 20 Jan 45, and 221, 25 Feb 45. sub: Information on Colored Troops. 

These reports were prepared at the behest of the commanding general of the Army Ground Forces during the 

preparation of Belli Wiley's The Training of Negro Troops (AGF Study No. 36. 1946). The quotation is from 

Exhibit K of USAFFE Board Report No. 22 I. 
A POSTWAR SEARCH 137 

faltered once it was understood that the 92d and 93d Infantry Divisions combined a relatively high number of decorations with relatively few casualties.41 

Actually, there was little doubt that the performance of the black divisions 

in World War II was generally unacceptable. Beyond that common conclusion, 

opinions diverged widely. Commanders tended to blame undisciplined troops 

and lack of initiative and control by black officers and noncommissioned officers 

as the primary cause of the difficulty. Others, particularly black observers, cited 

the white officers and their lack of racial sensitivity. In fact, as Ulysses Lee points 

out with careful documentation, all these factors were involved, but the 

underlying problem usually overlooked by observers was segregation. Large, allblack combat units submerged able soldiers in a sea of men with low aptitude 

and inadequate training. Segregation also created special psychological problems for junior black officers. Carefully assigned so that they never commanded 

white officers or men, they were often derided by white officers whose attitudes 

were quickly sensed by the men to the detriment of good discipline. Segregation 

was also a factor in the rapid transfer of men in and out of the divisions, thus 

negating the possible benefits of lengthy training. Furthermore, the divisions 

were natural repositories for many dissatisfied or inadequate white officers, who 

introduced a host of other problems. 

Truman Gibson was quick to point out how segregation had intensified the 

problem of turning civilians into soldiers and groups into units. The 

' 'dissimilarity in the learning profiles'' between black and white soldiers as 

reflected in their AGCT scores was, he explained to McCloy, primarily a result of 

inferior black schooling, yet its practical effect on the Army was to burden it 

with several large units of inferior combat ability (Table 2). In addition to the 

fact that large black units had a preponderance of slow learners, Gibson emphasized that nearly all black soldiers were trained near "exceedingly hostile" 

communities. This hostile atmosphere, he believed, had played a decisive role 

in their adjustment to Army life and adversely affected individual modvation. 

Gibson also charged the Army with promoting some black officers who lacked 

leadership qualifications and whose performance, consequently, was under par. 

He recommended a single measure of performance for officers and a single 

system for promotion, even if this system reduced promotions for black officers. 

Promotions on any basis other than merit, he concluded, deprived the Army of 

the best leadership and inflicted weak commanders on black units. 

Gibson was not trying to magnify the efficiency of segregated units. He 

made a special effort to compare the performance of the 92d Division with that 

of the integrated black platoons in Germany because such a comparison would 

demonstrate, he believed, that the Army's segregation policy was in need of 

critical reexamination. He cited "many officers" who believed that the problems connected with large segregated combat units justified their abolition in 

41E. W . Kenworthy, "The Case Against Army Segregation," Annals of the American Academy of 

Poltiical Science 275 (May 1952):28-29. A low decoration to casualty ratio is traditionally used as one measure 

of good unit performance. However, so many different unit attitudes and standards for decorations existed 

during World War II that any argument over ratios can only be self-defeating no matter what the approach. 
138 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

TABLE 2-AGCf PERCENTAGES IN SEI.ECJ'ED WORLD WAR II DIVISIONS 

Unit I II Ill IV v Total (130 +) (110- 120) (90-109) (60-89) (0-59) 

lith Armored Division ......... . 3.0 23.8 33.8 33.1 6.3 100 

3~th Infantry Division . .... . . . . .. 3.3 27.0 34.2 28.0 7.5 100 

92d Infantry Division (Negro) ... . . 0.4 5.2 11.8 43.5 39.1 100 

93d Infantry Division (Negro) ... .. 0.1 3.5 13.0 38.4 45.0 100 

100th Infantry Division .......... 3.6 27.1 34.1 29.1 6.1 100 

Source: Tables submitted by The Adjutant General to the Gillem Board, 1945. 

favor of the integration of black platoons into larger white units. Although such 

unit integration would not abolish segregation completely, Gibson concluded, 

it would permit the Army to use men and small units on the basis of ability 

alone.42 

The flexibility Gibson detected among many Army officers was not apparent 

in the answers to the- McCloy questionnaire that flowed into the War Department during the summer and fall of 1945. With few exceptions, the senior officers queried expressed uniform reactions. They reiterated a story of frustration 

and difficulty in training and employing black units, characterized black 

soldiers as unreliable and inefficient, and criticized the performance of black officers and noncommissioned officers. They were particularly concerned with 

racial disturbances, which, they believed, were not only the work of racial 

agitators but also the result of poor morale and a sense of discrimination among 

black troops. Yet they wanted to retain segregation, albeit in units of smaller 

size, and they wanted to depend , for the most part, on white officers to command these black units. Concerned with performance, pragmatic rather than 

reflective in their habits, the commanders showed little interest in or understanding of the factors responsible for the conditions of which they complained. 

Many believed that segregation actually enhanced black pride.43 

These responses were summarized by the commanding generals of the major 

force commands at the request of the War Department's Special Planning Division.44 For example, the study prepared by the Army Service Forces, which had 

employed a high proportion of black troops in its technical services during the 

war, passed on the recommendations made by these far-flung commands and 

touched incidentally on several of the points raised by Gibson.45 Like Gibson, 

42Memo, Gibson for ASW, 23 Apr45, sub: Report of Visit to MTO and ETO. ASW 291.2 (NT): sec also 

lnterv, Belli. Wiley with Truman K. Gibson, Civilian Aide to Secretary of War, 30 May 45, CMH files. 43Eventually over thirty-five commands responded to the McCloy questionnaire. For examples of the attitudes mentioned above, see Ltr. HQ, U.S. Forces, European Theater (Main) to TAG. I Oct 45, sub: Srudy of 

Participation of Negro Troops in the Ponwar Establishment; Ltr, HQ, U.S. Forces, India, Burma Theater. to 

TAG, 28 Aug45, same sub; Lu, GHQ USARPACtoTAG, 3Sep45, same sub. AllinAG 291.2 (23 May45). 

Some of these and many others arc also located in WDSSP 291.2 (1945). 44Memo, Dir, WDSSP, for CG's, ASF ct al .. 23 May 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar 

Military Establishment. AG 291.2 (23 May 45). 45Memo, CofS, ASP. for Dir. Special Planning Division, WDSS, I Oct 45, sub: Participation of Negro 

Troops in the Postwar Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2 (2 Oct 4)). On the use of Negroes in rhc: Signal 
A POSTWAR SEARCH 139 

the Army Service Forces recommended that Negroes of little or no education be 

denied induction or enlistment and that no deviation from normal standards for 

the sake of maintaining racial quotas in the officer corps be tolerated. The Army 

Service Forces also wanted Negroes employed in all major forces, participating 

proportionately in all phases of the Army's mission, including overseas and 

combat assignments, but not in every occupation. For the Army Service Forces 

had decided that Negroes performed best as truck drivers, ammunition 

handlers, stevedores, cooks, bakers, and the like and should be trained in these 

specialties rather than more highly skilled jobs such as armorer or machinist. 

Even in the occupations they were best suited to, Negroes should be given from 

a third more to twice as much training as whites, and black units should have 25 

to 50 percent more officers than white units. At the same time, the Army Service Forces wanted to retain segregated units, although it recommended limiting 

black service units to company size. Stating in conclusion that it sought only' 'to 

insure the most efficient training and utilization of Negro manpower'' and 

would ignore the question of racial equality or the ''wisdom of segregation in 

the social sense,' ' the Army Service Forces overlooked the possibility that the 

former could not be attained without consideration of the latter. 

The Army Ground Forces, which trained black units for all major branches 

of the field forces, also wanted to retain black units, but its report concluded 

that these units could be of battalion size. The organization of black soldiers in 

division-size units, it claimed, only complicated the problem of training because 

of the difficulty in developing the qualified black technicians, noncommissioned officers, and field grade officers necessary for such large units and finding 

training locations as well as assignment areas with sufficient off-base recreational 

facilities for large groups of black soldiers. The Army Ground Forces considered 

the problem of finding and training field grade officers particularly acute since 

black units employing black officers, at least in the case of infantry, had proved 

ineffective. Yet white officers put in command of black troops felt they were being punished, and their presence added to the frustration of the blacks. 

The Army Ground Forces was also particularly concerned with racial disturbances, which, it believed, stemmed from conflicting white and black concepts 

of the Negro's place in the social pattern. The Army Ground Forces saw no 

military solution for a problem that transcended the contemporary national 

emergency, and its conclusion-that the solution lay in society at large and not 

primarily in the armed forces- had the effect, whether or not so intended, of 

neatly exonerating the Army. In fact, the detailed conclusions and recommendations of ·the Army Ground Forces were remarkably similar to those of the 

Army Service Forces, but the Ground Forces study, more than any other, was 

shot full with blatant racism. The study quoted a 1925 War College study to the 

Corps, see the following volumes in the United States Army in World War II series: Dulany Tcrren, The 

Signal Corps: The Emergmcy (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1956); George Raynor Thompson 

eta!. , The Signal Corps: The Test (Washington: Government Printing Office, 195 7); George Raynor Thompson and Dixie R. Harris. The Sigt~al Corp.r: The Outcome (Washington: Government Printing Office. 1966). 
140 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

effect th~t the black officer was ''still a Negro with all the faults and weaknesses 

of character inherent in the Negro race." It also discussed the "average Negro" 

and his "inherent characteristics" at great length, dwelling on his supposed inferior mentality and weakness of character, and raising other racial shibboleths. 

Burdened with these prejudices, the Army Ground Forces study concluded 

that the conception that negroes should serve in the military forces, or in particular parts 

of the military forces, or sustain battle losses in proportion to their population in the 

United States, may be desirable but is impracticable and should be abandoned in the interest of a logical solution to the problem of the utilization of negroes in the armed 

forces. 6 

The Army Air Forces, another large employer of black servicemen, reported 

a slightly different World War II experience. Conforming with departmental 

policies on utilizing black soldiers, it had selected Negroes for special training 

on the same basis as whites with the exception of aviation cadets. Negroes with a 

lower stanine (aptitude) had been accepted in order to secure enough candidates 

to meet the quota for pilots, navigators, and bombadiers in the black units. In 

its preliminary report to the War Department on the employment of Negroes, 

the Army Air Forces admitted that individuals of both races with similar aptitudes and test scores had the same success in technical schools, could be trained 

as pilots and technicians in the same period of time, and showed the same 

degree of mechanical proficiency. Black units, on the other hand, required considerably more time in training than white units, sometimes simply because 

they were understrength and their performance was less effective. At the same 

time the Air Forces admitted that even after discounting the usual factors, such 

as time in service and job assignment, whites advanced further than blacks. No 

explanation was offered. Nevertheless, the commanding general of the Air 

Forces reported very little racial disorder or conflict overseas. There had been a 

considerable amount in the United States, however; many Air Forces commanders ascribed this to the unwillingness of northern Negroes to accept 

southern Jaws or social customs, the insistence of black officers on integrated officers' clubs, and the feeling among black fliers that command had been made 

an exclusive prerogative of white officers rather than a matter depending on 

demonstrated qualification. 

In contrast to the others, the Army Air Forces revealed a marked change in 

sentiment over the post-World War I studies of black troops. No more were 

there references to congenital inferiority or inherent weaknessess, but 

everywhere a willingness to admit that Negroes had been held back by the white 

majority. 

The commanding general of the Army Air Forces recommended Negroes be 

apportioned among the three major forces-the Army Ground Forces, the Army 

Service Forces, and the Army Air Forces-but that their numbers in no case exceed 10 percent of any command; that black servicemen be trained exactly as 

46Mcmo, Ground AG, AGF, for CofSA. 28 Nov 4~. sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar 

Military Establishment. with Incl. WDSSP 291.2 (27 Dec 4~). 
A POSTWAR SEARCH 141 

whites; and that Negroes be segregated in units not to exceed air group size. 

Unlike the others, the Army Air Forces wanted black units to have black commanders as far as possible and recommended that the degree of segregati;n in 

messing, recreation, and social activities conform to the custom of the surrounding community. It wanted Negroes assigned overseas in the same proportion as 

whites, and in the United States, to the extent practicable, only to those are.as 

considered favorable to their welfare. Finally, the Air Forces wanted Negroes to 

be neither favored nor discriminated against in disciplinary matters. 47 

Among the responses of the subordinate commands were some exceptions to 

the generalizations found in those of the major forces. One commander, for example, while concluding that segregation was desirable, admitted that it was 

one of the basic causes of the Army's racial troubles and would have to be dealt 

with "one way or the other."48 Another recommended dispersing black troops, 

one or two in a squad, throughout all-white combat units.49 Still another 

pointed out that the performance of black officers and noncommissioned officers in terms of resourcefulness, aggressiveness, sense of responsibility, and 

ability to make decisions was comparable to the performance of white soldiers 

when conditions of service were nearly equal. But the Army failed to understand 

this truth, the commander of the 1st Service Command charged, and its 

separate and unequal treatment discriminated in a way that would affect the efficiency of any man. The performance of black troops, he concluded, depended 

on how severely the community near a post differentiated between the black 

and white soldier and how well the Negro's commander demonstrated the 

fairness essential to authority. The Army admitted that black units needed 

superior leadership, but, he added, it misunderstood what this leadership entailed. All too often commanders of black units acted under the belief that their 

men were different and needed special treatment, thus clearly suggesting racial 

inferiority. The Army, he concluded, should learn from its wartime experience 

the deleterious effect of segregation on motivation and ultimately on performance.50 

Truman Gibson took much the same approach when he summed up for 

McCloy his estimate of the situation facing the Army. After rehearsing the 

recent history of segregation in the armed forces, he suggested that it was not 

enough to compare the performance of black and white troops; the reportS of 

black performance should be examined to determine whether the performance 

would be improved or impaired by changing the policy of segregation. Any 

major Army review, he urged, should avoid the failure of the old studies on race 

47Memo, CG, AAF, for CofSA. 17 Sep 45. sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar Military 

Establishment, WDSSP 291.2 (1945). For the final report of 2 Oct 45 , which summed up the previous recom· 

mendations. see Summary Sheet, AC/ AS- I for Maj Gen C. C. Chauncey, DCofAS, 2 Oct 45, same sub and 

file. 

48Lrr, OCSigO (Col David E. Washburn, Exec Off) to WDSSP. 31 jul 45, sub: Participation of Negro 

Troo~s in the Postwar Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2 (1945). 4 Ltr, Maj Gen James L. Collins, CG. Fifth Service Cmd, to CG, ASF. 24 Jul 45. sub: Participation of 

Negro Troops in the Postwar Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2. 50Memo, CG, Fiest Service Cmd, for CG. ASF, 23 Jul 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the 

Postwar Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2 (1945). 
142 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

that based differences in performance on racial characteristics" and should 

question instead the efficiency of segregation. For him, segregation was the 

heart of the matter, and he counseled that "future policy should be predicated 

on an assumption that civilian attitudes will not remain static. The basic policy 

of the Army should, therefore, not itself be static and restrictive, bunhould be 

so framed as to make further progress possible on a flexible basis. " 51 

Before passing Gibson's suggestions to the Assistant Secretary of War, McCloy's executive assistant, Lt. Col. Davidson Sommers, added some ideas of his 

own. Since it was "pretty well recognized," he wrote, that the Army had not 

found the answer to the efficient use of black manpower, a first-class officer or 

group of officers of high rank, supplemented perhaps with a racially mixed 

group of civilians, should be designated to prepare a new racial policy. But, he 

warned, their work would be ineffectual without specific directions from Army 

leaders. He wanted the Army to make "eventual nonsegregation" its goal. 

Complete integration, Sommers felt, was impossible to achieve at once. 

Classification test scores alone refuted the claim that "Negroes in general make 

as good soldiers as whites.'' But he thought there was no need "to resort to 

racial theories to explain the difference,'' for the lack of educational, occupational, and social opportunities was sufficient. 52 

Sommers had, in effect, adopted Gibson's gradualist approach to the problem, suggesting an inquiry to determine ''the areas in which nonsegregation can 

be attempted first and the methods by which it can be introduced ... instead 

of merely generalizing, as in the past, on the disappointing and not very relevant experiences with large segregated units.'' He foresaw difficulties: a certain 

amount of social friction and perhaps a considerable amount of what he called 

"professional Negro agitation" because Negroes competing with whites would 

probably not achieve compa.rable ranks or positions immediately. But Sommers 

saw no cause for alarm. "We shall be on firm ground," he concluded, "and will 

be able to defend our actions by relying on the unassailable position that we are 

using men in accordance with their ability.'' 

Competing with these calls for gradual desegregation was the Army's growing concern with securing some form of universal military training. Congress 

would discuss the issue during the summer and fall of 1945, and one of the 

questions almost certain to arise in the congressional hearings was the place contemplated for Negroes. Would the Army use Negroes in combat units? Would 

the Army train and use Negroes in units together with whites? Upon the answers 

to these questions hinged the votes of most, if not all, southern congressmen. 

Prudence dictated that the Army avoid any innovations that might jeopardize 

the chance for universal military training. In other words, went the prevalent 

view, what was good for the Army-and universal military training was in that 

category-had to come before all else.H 

HMemo, Truman Gibson for ASW. 8 Aug 45, ASW 291.2. 12Memo. Exec Off. ASW. for McCloy, 28 Aug 45, ASW 291.2 (NU. 

HMemos, Col FrederickS. Skinner for Oir, Special Planning Div, WDSS, 25 May and 2 Jun 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar Military Establishment, WOSSP 291.2 (1945). 
A POSTWAR SEARCH 143 

Even among officers troubled by the contradictory aspects of an issue 

clouded by morality, many felt impelled to give their prime allegiance to the 

Army as it was then constituted . The Army's impressive achievement during the 

war, they reasoned, argued for its continuation in conformance with current 

precepts, particularly in a world still full of hostilities. The stability of the Army 

catne first; changes would have to be made slowly, without risking the menace 

of disruption. An attempt to mix the races in the Army seemed to most officers 

a dangerous move bordering on irresponsibility. Furthermore, the majority of 

Army officers, dedicated to the traditions of the service, saw the Army as a social 

as well as a military institution. It was a way of life that embraced families, wives 

and children. The old manners and practices were comfortable because they 

were well known and understood, had produced victory, and had represented a 

life that was somewhat isolated and insulated- particularly in the field- from 

the currents and pressures of national life. Why then should the old patterns be 

modified ; why exchange comfort for possible chaos? Why should the Army admit large numbers of Negroes; what had Negroes contributed to winning World 

War II; what could they possibly contribute to the postwar Army? 

Although opinion among Army officials on the future role of Negroes in the 

Army was diverse and frankly questioning in tone, opinion on the past performance of black units was not. Commanders tended to agree that with certain exceptions, particularly small service and combat support units, black units performed below the Army average during the war and considerably below the best 

white units. The commanders also generally agreed that black units should be 

made more efficient and usually recommended they be reduced in size and 

filled with better qualified men. Most civil rights spokesmen and their allies in 

the Army, on the other hand, viewed segregation as the underlying cause of 

poor performance. How, then, could the conflicting advice be channeled into 

construction of an acceptable postwar racial policy? The task was clearly beyond 

the powers of the War Department's Special Planning Division, and in 

September 1945 McCloy adopted the recommendation of Sommers and Gibson 

and urged the Secretary of War to turn over this crucial matter to a board of 

general officers. Out of this board's deliberations, influenced in great measure 

by opinions previously express·ed , would emerge the long-awaited revision of the 

Army's policy for its black minority. 

The Navy's Informal Inspection 

In contrast to the elaborate investigation conducted by the Army, the Navy's 

search for a policy consisted mainly of an informal intradepartmental review and 

an inspection of its black units by a civilian representative of the Secretary of the 

Navy. In general this contrast may be explained by the difference in the services' 

postwar problems. The Army was planning for the enlistment of a large cross 

section of the population through some form of universal military training; the 

Navy was planning for a much smaller peacetime organization of technic~lly 

trained volunteers. Moreover, the Army wanted to review the performance of its 
144 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

many black combat units, whereas the naval establishment, which had excluded 

most of its Negroes from combat, had little to gain from measuring their wartime performance. 

The character and methods of the Secretary of the Navy had an important 

bearing on policy. Forrestal believed he had won the senior officers to his view of 

equal treatment and opportunity, and to be assured of success he wanted to convince lower commanders and the ranks as well. He wrote in July 1945: "We are 

making every effort to give more than lip service to the principles of democracy 

in the treatment of the Negro and we are crying to do it with the minimum of 

commotion .... We would rather await the practical demonstration of the success of our efforts . . . There is still a long road to travel but I am confident we 

have made a start. " 54 

Forrestal's wish for a racially democratic Navy did not noticeably conflict 

with the traditionalists' plan for a small, technically elite force , so while the 

Army launched a worldwide quest in anticipation of an orthodox policy review, 

the Navy started an informal investigation designed primarily to win support for 

the racial program conceived by the Secretary of the Navy. 

The Navy's search began in the last months of the war when Secretary Forreseal approved the formation of an informal Committee on Negro Personnel. 

Although Lester Granger, the secretary's adviser on racial matters, had originally 

proposed the establishment of such a committee to ·'help frame sound and effective racial policies,"» the Chief of Naval Personnel, a preeminent representative of the Navy's professionals, saw an altogether different reason for the 

group. He endorsed the idea of a committee, he told a member of the 

secretary's staff, ''not because there is anything wrong or backward about our 

policies,'' but because ''we need greater cooperation from the technical Bureaus 

in order that those policies may succeed. " 56 Forrestal did little to define the 

group's purpose when on 16 April 1945 he ordered Under Secretary Bard to 

organize a committee ''to assure uniform policies'' and see that all subdivisions 

of the Navy were familiar with each other's successful and unsuccessful racial 

practices. 57 

By pressing for the uniform treatment of Negroes, Forrestal doubtless hoped 

to pull backward branches into line with more liberal ones so that the progressive reforms of the past year would be accepted throughout the Navy. But if 

Forrestal's ultimate goal was plain, his failure to give clear-cut directions to his 

informal committee was characteristic of his handling of racial policy. He 

carefully followed the recommendations of the Chief of Naval Personnel, who 

wanted the committee to be a military group, despite having earlier expressed 

his intention of inviting Granger to chair the committee. As announced on 25 

April, the committee was headed by a senior official of the Bureau of Naval PerHLu, Forrestal to Field, 14 Jul45. 54-1-13, Forrestal file. GenRecsNav. 

))Ltr, Lester Granger to SecNav. 19 Mar 45. 54-1-13. Forrestal file, GcnRecsNav. 

)

6Memo, Chief. NavPers, for Cmdr Richard M. Paget (Exec Off. SecNav), 21 Apr 45, sub: Formation of 

Informal Cmte to Assure Uniform Policies on the Handling of Negro Personnel. P-17, BuPersRecs. 

57Mcmo, SccNav for Cmdr Richard M. Paget, 16 Apr 45, 54-1-19. Forrcml file, GenRecsNav. 
A POSTWAR SEARCH 14) 

sonnel, Capt. Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, with another of the bureau's officers 

serving as committee recorder. 8 Restricting the scope of the inquiry, Forrestal 

ordered that ''whenever practical'' the committee should assign each of its 

members to investigate the racial practices in his own organization. 

Nevertheless when the committee got down to work it quickly went beyond 

the limited concept of its mission as advanced by the Chief of Naval Personnel. 

Not only did it study statistics gathered from all sections of the department and 

review the experiences of various commanders of black units, it also studied 

Granger's immediate and long-range recommendations for the department, an 

extension of his earlier wartime work for Forrestal. Specifically, Granger had 

called for the formulation of a definite integration policy and for a strenuous 

public relations campaign-directed toward the black community. He had also 

called for the enlistment and commissioning of a significant number of Negroes 

in the Regular Navy, and he wanted commanders indoctrinated in their racial 

responsibilities. Casting further afield, Granger had warned that discriminatory 

policies and practices in shipyards and other establishments must be eliminated, 

and employment opportunities for black civilians in the department 

broadened. 9 · 

The committee deliberated on all these points, and, after meeting several 

times, announced in May 1945 its findings and recommendations. It found that 

the Navy's current policies were sound and when properly executed produced 

good results. At the same time it saw a need for periodic reviews to insure 

uniform application of policy and better public relations. Such findings could 

be expected from a body headed by a senior official of the personnel bureau, 

but the committee then came up with the unexpected- a series of recommendations for sweeping change. Revealing the influence of the Special Programs 

Unit, the committee asked that Negroes be declared available for assignment to 

all types of ships and shore stations in all classifications, with selections made 

solely on merit. Since wholesale reassignments were impractical, the committee 

recommended well-planned, gradual assimilation-it avoided the word integration-as the best policy for ending the concentration of Negroes at shore activities. It also attacked the St eward's Branch as the conspicuous symbol of the 

Negroes' second-class status and called for the assignment of white stewards and 

allowing qualified stewards to transfer to general service. 

The committee wanted the Judge Advocate General to assign legal advisers 

to all major trials, especially those involving minorities, to prevent errors in 

courcs-martial that might be construed as discrimination. It further recommended that Negroes be represented in the secretary's public relations office; 

that news items concerning Negroes be more widely disseminated through 

bureau bulletins; and, finally ., that all bureaus as well as the Coast Guard and 

Marine Corps be encouraged to enroll commanders in special indoctrination 

580ther members of the com mince included four senior Navy capta ins and representatives of the Marine 

Cor~s and Coast Guard. Memo, SecNav for Under SecNav, 25 Apr45, QB 495 / A3-l. GenRccsNav. 9Lrr, G ranger to SecNav. 19 Mar 45 . :54-l-1 3. Forrcstal file. GenRecsNav. 
146 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

GRANGER INTERVIEWING SAILORS on inspection tour in the Pacific. 

programs before they were assigned to units with substantial numbers of 

Negroes.

60 

The committee's recommendations, submitted to Under Secretary Bard on 

22 May 194 5. were far more than an attempt to unify the racial practices of the 

various subdivisions of the Navy Department. For the first time, senior representatives of the department's often independent branches accepted the contention 

of the Special Programs Unit that segregation was militarily inefficient and a 

gradual but complete integration of the Navy's general service was the solution 

to racial problems. 

Yet as a formula for equal treaqnent and opportunity in the Navy, the committee's recommendations had serious omissions. Besides overlooking the 

dearth of black officers and the Marine Corps' continued strict segregation, the 

committee had ignored Granger's key proposal that Negroes be guaranteed a 

place in the Regular Navy. Almost without exception, Negroes in the Navy's 

general service were reservists, products of wartime volunteer enlistment or the 

draft. All but a few of the black regulars were stewards. Without assurance that 

many of these general service reservists would be converted to regulars or that 

60Mcmo. Cmte on Personnel for Under SecNav, 22 May 45, sub: Report and Recommendations of Com· 

mittee on Negro Personnel, P. 16- 3. GenRecsNav. 
A POSTWAR SEARCH 147 

GRANGER WITH CREWMEN OF A NAVAL YARD CRAFT 

provision would be made for enlistment of black regulars, the committee's integration recommendations lacked substance. Secretary Forrestal must have 

been aware of these omissions, but he ignored them. Perhaps the problem of 

the Negro in the postwar Navy seemed remote during this last, climactic summer of the war. 

To document the status of the Negro in the Navy, Forrestal turned again to 

Lester Granger. Granger had acted more than once as the secretary's eyes and 

ears on racial matters, and the association between the two men had ripened 

from mutual respect to close rapport. 61 During August 1945 Granger visited 

some twenty continental installations for Forrestal, including large depots and 

naval stations on the west coast, the Great Lakes Training Center, and bases and 

air stations in the south. Shortly after V-J day Granger launched a more ambitious tour of inspection that found him traveling among the 45,000 Negroes 

assigned to the Pacific area. 

Unlike the Army staff, whose worldwide quest for information stressed black 

performance in the familiar lessons-learned formula and only incidentally 

treated those factors that affected performance, Granger, a civilian, never really 

61Columbia University Oral Hist lnteJV with Granger. 
148 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES. 1940-1965 

tried to assess performance. He was, however, a race relations expert, and he 

tried constantly to discover how the treatment accorded Negroes in the Navy affected their performance and to pass on his findings to local commanders. He 

later explained his technique. First, he called on the commanding officer for 

facts and opinions on the performance and morale of the black servicemen. 

Then he proceeded through the command, unaccompanied, interviewing 

Negroes individually as well as in small and large groups. Finally, he returned to 

the commanding officer to pass along grievances reported by the men and his 

ow~ observations on the conditions under which they served.62 

Granger always related the performance of enlisted men to their morale. He 

pointed out to the commanders that poor morale was at the bottom of the Port 

Chicago mass mutiny and the Guam riot, and his report to the secretary confirmed the experiences of the Special Programs Unit: black performance was 

deeply affected by the extent to which Negroes ~elt victimized by racial 

discrimination or handicapped by segregation, especially in housing, messing, 

and military and civilian recreational facilities. Although no official policy on 

segregated living quarters existed, Granger found such segregation widely practiced at naval bases in the United States. Separate housing meant in most cases 

separate work crews, thereby encouraging voluntary segregation in mess halls. In 

some cases the Navy's separate housing was carried over into nearby civilian 

communities where no segregation existed before. In others shore patrols forced 

segregation on civilian places of entertainment, even when state laws forbade it. 

On southern bases, especially, many commanders willingly abandoned the 

Navy's ban against discrimination in favor of the racial practices of local communities. There enforced segregation was widespread, often made explicit with 

"colored" and "white" signs. 

Yet Granger found encouraging exceptions which he passed along co local 

commanders elsewhere. At Camp Perry, Virginia, for example, there was a 

minimum of segregation, and the commanding officer had intervened to see 

that Virginia's segregated bus laws did not apply to Navy buses operating between the camp and Norfolk. This situation was unusual for the Navy although 

integrated busing had been standard practice in the Army since mid-1944. He 

found Camp Perry "a pleasant contrast" to other southern installations, and 

from his experiences there he concluded that the attitude of the commanding 

officer set the pace. "There is practically no limit," Granger said, "to the progressive changes in racial attitudes and relationships which can be made when 

sufficiently enlightened and intelligent officer leadership is in command. '' The 

development of hard and fast rules, he concluded, was unnecessary, but the 

Bureau of Naval Personnel must constantly see to it that commanders resisted 

the ''influence of local conventions.'' 

At Pearl Harbor Granger visited three of the more than two hundred auxiliary ships manned by mixed crews. On two the conditions were excellent. The 

62

Granger's findings and an account of his inspection technique are located in ltrs, Granger to SecNav, 4 

Aug, 10 Aug. 27 Aug. and 31 Oct 45: and in "Minutes of Press Conference Held by Mr. lester B. Granger." 

1 Nov 45 . All in 54-1-13, ForreStal file, GenRccsNav. See also Columbia Univcrsiiy Oral Hist lmcrv with 

Granger. 
A POSTWAR SEARCH 149 

commanding officer in each case had taken special pains to avoid racial differentiation in ratings, assignments, quarters, and messes; efficiency was 

superior, morale was high, and racial conflict was absent. On the third ship 

Negroes were separated; they were specifically assigned to a special bunk section 

in the general crew compartment and to one end of the chow table. Here there 

was dissatisfaction among Negroes and friction with whites. 

At the naval air bases in Hawaii performance and morale were good because 

Negroes served in a variety of ratings that corresponded to their training and 

ability. The air station in Oahu, for example, had black radar operators, 

signalmen, yeomen, machinist mates, and others working amiably with whites; 

the only sign of racial separation visible was the existence of certain barracks, no 

different from the others, set aside for Negroes. 

Morale was lowest in black base companies and conscrucrion battalions. In 

several instances able commanding officers had availed themselves of competent 

black leaders to improve race relations, but in most units the racial situation was 

generally poor. Granger regarded the organization of the units as "badly conceived from the racial standpoint.'' Since base companies were composed almost 

entirely of nonrated men, spaces for black petty officers were lacking. In such 

units the scaffold of subordinate leadership necessary to support and uphold the 

authority of the officers was absent, as were opportunities for individual advancement. Some units had been provisionally re-formed into logistic support 

companies, and newly authorized ratings were quickly filled. This partial 

remedy had corrected some deficiencies, but left unchanged a number of the 

black base companies in the Pacific area. Although conStruction battalions had 

workers of both races, Granger reported them to be essentially segregated 

because whites were assigned to headquarters or to supervisory posts. Some officers had carried this arbitrary segregation into off-duty areas, one commander 

contending that strict segregation was the civilian pattern and that everyone was 

accustomed to it. 

The Marine Corps lagged far behind the rest of the naval establishment, and 

there was little pretense of conforming with the Navy's racial policy. Black 

marines remained rigidly segregated and none of the few black officer candidates, all apparently well qualified, had been commissioned. Furthermore, 

some black marines who wanted to enlist as regulars were waiting word whether 

they could be included in the postwar Marine Corps. Approximately 85 percent 

of the black marines in the Pacific area were in depot and ammunition companies and steward groups. In many cases their assignments failed to match their 

qualifications and previous training. Quite a few specialists complained of having been denied privileges ordinarily accorded white men of similar status-for 

example, opportunities to attend schools for first sergeants, musicians, and 

radar operators. Black technicians were frequently sent to segregated and hastily 

constructed schools or detached to Army installations for schooling rather than 

sent to Marine Corps schools. Conversely, some white enlisted men, assigned to 

black units for protracted periods as instructors, were often accorded the unusual 

privilege of living in officers' quarters and eating in the officers' mess in order to 

preserve racial segregation. 
150 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Most black servicemen, Granger found, resented the white fleet shore 

patrols in rhe Pacific area which they considered biased in handling disciplinary 

cases and reporting offenders. The commanding officer of the shore patrol in 

Honolulu defended the practice because he believed the use of Negroes in this 

duty would be highly dangerous. Granger disagreed, pointing to the successful 

employment of black shore patrols in such fleet liberty cities as San Diego and 

Miami. He singled out the situation in Guam, which was patrolled by an allwhite Marine Corps guard regarded by black servicemen as racist in attitude. 

Frequently. racial clashes occurred, principally over the attentions of native 

women, but it was the concentration of Negroes in the naval barracks at Guam, 

Granger concluded, along with the lack of black shore patrols, that intensified 

racial isolation, induced a suspicion of racial policies, and aggravated resentment. 

At every naval installation Granger heard vigorous complaints over the contrast between black and white ratings and promotions. Discrepancies could be 

explained partly by the fact that, since the general service had been opened to 

Negroes fairly late in the war, many white men had more than two years seniority over any black. But Granger found evidence that whites were transferred into 

units to receive promotions and ratings due eligible black members. In many 

cases, he found "indisputable racial discrimination" by commanding officers, 

with the result that training was wasted, trained men were prevented from acquiring essential experience and its rewards, and resentment smoldered. 

Evidence of overt prejudice aside, Granger stressed again and again that the 

primary cause of the Navy's racial problems was segregation. Segregation was 

''impractical and inefficient,'' he pointed out, because racial isolation bred 

suspicion, which in turn inflamed resentment, and finally provoked insubordination. The best way to integrate Negroes, Granger felt, was to take the most 

natural course, that is, eliminate all special provisions, conditions, or cautions 

regarding their employment. ''There should be no exceptional approach to 

problems involving Negroes," he counseled, "for the racial factor in naval service will disappear only when problems involving Negroes are accepted as part of 

the Navy's general program for insuring efficient performance and first-class 

discipline.'' 

Despite his earlier insistence on a fair percentage of Negroes in the postwar 

Regular Navy, Granger conceded that the number and proportion would probably decrease during peacetime. It was hardly likely, he added, that black enlistment would exceed 5 percent of the total strength, a manageable proportion. 

He even saw some advantages in smaller numbers, since, as the educational 

standards for all enlistees rose, the integration of relatively few but better 

qualified Negroes would "undoubtedly make for greater racial harmony and 

improved naval performance.'' 

Despite the breadth and acuity of his observations, Granger suggested 

remarkedly few changes. Impressed by the progress made in the treatment of 

Negroes during the war, he apparently expected it to continue uninterrupted. 

Although his investigations uncovered basic problems that would continue to 
A POSTWAR SEARCH 151 

trouble the Navy, he did not recognize them as such. For his part, Forrestal sent 

Granger's voluminous reports with their few recommendations to his military 

staff and thanked the Urban League official for his contribution. 63 

Although different in approach and point of view, Granger's observatioqs 

neatly complemented the findings and recommendations of the Committee on 

Negro Personnel. Both reinforced the secretary's postwar policy aims and both 

supported his gradualist approach to racial reform. Granger cited segregation, in 

particular the concentration of masses of black sailors, as the principal cause of 

racial unrest and poor morale among Negroes. The committee urged the 

gradual integration of the general service in the name of military efficiency. 

Granger and the committee also shared certain blind spots. Both were encouraged by the progress toward full-scale integration chat occurred during the war, 

but this improvement was nominal at best, a token bow to changing conditions. 

Their assumption that integration would spread to all branches of the Navy 

neglected the widespread and deeply entrenched opposition to integration that 

would yield only to a strategy imposed by the Navy's civilian and military 

leaders. Finally, the hope that integration would spread ignored the fact that 

after the war few Negroes except stewards would be able to meet the enlistment 

requirements for the Regular Navy. In short, the postwar Navy, so far as Negroes 

were concerned, was likely to resemble the prewar Navy. 

The search for a postwar racial policy led the Army and Navy down some of 

the same paths. The Army manpower planners decided that the best way to 

avoid the inefficient black divisions was to organize Negroes into smaller, and 

therefore, in their view, more efficient segregated units in all the arms and services. At the same time Secretary Forrestal's advisers decided that the best way to 

avoid the concentration of Negroes who could not be readily assimilated in the 

general service was to integrate the small remnant of black specialists and leave 

the majority of black sailors in the separate Steward's Branch. In both instances 

the experiences of World War II had successfully demonstrated to the traditionalists that large-scale segregated units were unacceptable, but neither service 

was yet ready to accept large-scale integration as an alternative. 

63Memo, }.I'. (James Forrestal) for Vice Adm Jacobs (Chief of Naval Personnel), 23 Aug 4~; Ltr, SecNav to 

Granger, 29 Dec 45. both in 54-1-13, Forreml file, GenRecsNav. 
CHAPTER6 

New Directions 

All the services developed new racial policies in the immediate postwar 

period. Because these policies were responses to racial stresses peculiar to each 

service and were influenced by the varied experiences of each, they were, 

predictably, disparate in both substance and approach; because they were also 

reactions to a common set of pressures on the services they proved to be, perhaps 

not so predictably, quite similar in practical consequences. One pressure felt by 

all the services was the recently acquired knowledge that the nation's military 

manpower was not only variable but also limited in quantity. Military effjciency 

demanded, therefore, that the services not only make the most effective use of 

available manpower, but also improve its quality. Since Negroes, who made up 

approximately 10 percent of the population, formed a substantial pact of the nation's manpower, they could no longer be considered primarily a source of unskilled labor. They too must be employed appropriately, and to this end a 

higher proportion of Negroes in the services must be qualified for specialized 

jobs. 

Continuing demands by civil rights groups added to the pressure on the 

services to employ Negroes according to their abilities. Arguing that Negroes 

had the right to enjoy the privileges and share the responsibilities of citizenship, 

civil rights spokesmen appeared determined to test the constitutionality of the 

services' wartime policies in the courcs. Their demands placed the Truman administration on the defensive and served warning on the armed forces that never 

again could they look to the exclusion of black Americans as a long-term solution to their racial problems. 

In addition to such pressures, the services had to reckon with a more immediate problem. Postwar black reenlistment, pardcularly among service men 

stationed overseas, was climbing far beyond expectation. As the armed forces 

demobilized in late 1945 and early 1946, the percentage of Negroes in the Army 

rose above its wartime high of 9.68 percent of the enlisted strength and was expected to reach 15 percent and more by 194 7. Aside from the Marine Corps, 

which experienced a rapid drop in black enlistment, the Navy also expected a 

rise in the percentage of Negroes, at least in the near future. The increase occurred in part because Negroes, who had less combat time than whites and 

therefore fewer eligibility points for discharge, were being separated from service later and more slowly. The rise reflected as well the Negro's expectation that 

the national labor market would deteriorate in the wake of the war. Although 

greater opportunities for employment had developed for black Americans, 

civilians already filled the posts and many young Negroes preferred the job 

security of a military career. But there was another, more poignant reason why 
NEW DIRECTIONS 153 

many Negroes elected to remain in uniform: they were afraid to reenter what 

seemed a hostile society and preferred life in the armed forces, imperfect as that 

might be. The effect of this increase on the services, particularly the largest service, the Army, was sharp and direct. Since many Negroes were poorly educated, 

they were slow to learn the use of sophisticated military equipment, and since 

the best educated and qualified men, black and white, tended to leave, the services faced the prospect of having a large proportion of their enlisted strength 

black and unskilled. 

The Gillem Board Report 

Clearly, a new policy was necessary, and soon after the Japanese surrender 

Assistant Secretary McCloy sent to the recently appointed Secretary of War the 

accumulated pile of papers on the subject of how best to employ Negroes in the 

postwar Army. Along with the answers to the questionnaires sent to major commanders and a collection of interoffice memos went McCloy's reminder that the 

matter ought to be dealt with soon. McCloy wanted to form a committee of 

senior officers to secure ''an objective professional view'' to be used as a base for 

attacking the whole race problem. But while he considered it imponant to put 

this professional view on record , he still expected it to be subject to civilian 

review. 1 

Robert P. Patterson became Secretary of War on 27 September 1945, after 

serving with Henry Stimson for five years, first as assistant and later as under 

secretary. Intimately concerned with racial matters in the early years of the war, 

Patterson later became involved in war procurement, a specialty far removed 

from the complex and controversial racial situation that faced the Army. Now as 

secretary he once again assumed an active role in the Army's black manpower 

problems and quickly responded to McCloy's request for a policy review. 2 In accordance with Patterson's oral instructions, General Marshall appointed a 

board, under the chairmanship of Lt. Gen. Alvan C. Gillem, Jr., which met on 

1 October 1945. Three days later a formal directive signed by the Deputy Chief 

of Staff and approved by the Secretary of War ordered the board to "prepare a 

policy for the use of the authorized Negro manpower potential during the postwar period including the complete development of the means required to derive 

the maximum efficiency from the full authorized manpower of the nation in the 

event of a national emergency. " 3 On this group, to be known as the Gillem 

Board, would fall the responsibility for formulating a policy, preparing a directive, and planning the use of Negroes in the postwar Army. 

None of the board members was particularly prepared for the new assignment. General Gillem, a Tennessean, had come up through the ranks to command the XIII Corps in Europe during World War II. Although he had written 

1

Memo. McCloy for SW. 17 Sep 45. SW 291.2; Ltr. McCloyto aurhor, 25 Sep 69. CMH files. 2

Sce, for example, Memo, SW for CofS. 7 Nov 45. SW 291.2; sec also Ltr, McCloy tO author, 25 Sep 69. 

~Quoted in Memo, Gc:n Gillem for CofS. 17 Nov 45, sub: Report of Board of General Officers on Utiliza· 

tion of Negro Manpower in the Post·War Army, copy in CSGOT 291.2 (1945) BP. 
154 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940- 1965 

one of the 1925 War College studies on 

the use of black troops and had many 

black units in his corps, Gillem probably owed his appointment to the fact 

that he was a three-star general, 

available at the moment, and had 

recently been selected by the Chief of 

Staff to direct a Special Planning Division study on the use of black troops 

that had been superseded by the new 

board.4 Burdened with the voluminous 

papers collected by McCloy, Gillem 

headed a board composed of Maj . Gen. 

Lewis A. Pick, a Virginian who had 

built the Ledo Road in the ChinaBurma-India theater; Brig. Gen. 

Winslow C. Morse of Michigan, who 

had served in a variety of assignments in 

the Army Air Forces culminating in 

wartime duties in China; and Brig. GENERALGILLEM 

Gen. Aln D. Warnock, the recorder without vote, a Texan who began his career 

in the Arizona National Guard and had served in Iceland during World War II.) 

These men had broad and diverse experience and gave the board a certain 

geographical balance. Curiously enough, none was a graduate of West Point.6 

Although new to the subject, the board members worked quickly. Less than 

a month after their first session, Gillem informed the Chief of Staff that they 

had already reached certain conclusions. They recognized the need to build on 

the close relationships developed between the races during the war by introducing progressive measures that could be put into operation promptly and would 

provide for the assignment of black troops on the basis of individual merit and 

ability alone. After studying and comparing the racial practices of the other services, the board decided that the Navy's partial integration had stimulated competition which improved black performance without causing racial friction . By 

contrast, strict segregation in the Marine Corps required longer training periods 

and closer supervision for black marines. In his memorandum Gillem refrained 

from drawing the logical conclusion and simply went on to note that the Army 

had, for example, integrated its black and white patients in hospitals because of 

the greater expense , inefficiency, and general impracticality of duplicating com4

Interv, Capt Alan Osur, USAF, with Lt Gen Alvan C. GiUcm (USA Ret .. ). 3 Feb 72, copy in CMH. 

)Memo, Maj Gen Ray Porter, Dir, Spec Planning Div, for Gillem. 28 Sep 45. sub: War Department 

Special Board on Negco Manpower, WDCSA 320.2. 

6Jn a later comment on the selections, McCloy said that the geographical spread and lack of West Point 

representation was accidental and that the use of general officers reflected the importance of the subject to him 

and to Patterson. See Ltr, McCloy to author, 25 Sep 69. and Ltr. Gen Morse to author. 10 Sep 74, CMH files. 
NEW DIRECTIONS 155 

plex medical equipment and installations. 7 By inference the same 

disadvantages applied to maintaining separate training facilities, operational 

units, and the rest of the apparatus of the shrinking Army establishment. At 

one point in his progress report, Gillem seemed close to recommending integration, at least to the extent already achieved in the Navy. But stated explicitly 

such a recommendation would have been a radical step. out of keeping with the 

climate of opinion in the country and in the Army itself. 

On 17 November 1945 the Gillem Board finished the study and sent its 

report to the Chief of Staff.& In six weeks the board had questioned more than 

sixty witnesses, consulted a mass of documentary material, and drawn up conclusions and recommendations on the use of black troops. The board declared 

that its recommendations were based on two complementary principles: black 

Americans had a constitutional right tO fight, and the Army had an obligation 

to make the most effective use of every soldier. But the board also took into account reports of the Army's wartime experience with black units. It referred constantly to this experience, citing the satisfactory performance of the black service 

units and some of the smaller black combat units, in particular the artillery and 

tank battalions. It also described the black infantry platoons integrated into 

white companies in Europe as "eminently successful." At the same time large 

black combat units had not been satisfactory, most often because their junior officers and noncommissioned officers lacked the ability to lead. The difficulties 

the Army encountered in properly placing its black troops during the war, the 

board decided, stemmed to some extent from inadequate staff work and improper planning. Poor staff work allowed a disproportionate number of Negroes 

with low test scores to be allocated to combat elements. Lack of early planning, 

constant reorganization and regrouping of black units, and continuous shifting 

of individuals from one type of training ro another had confused and 

bewildered black troops, who sometimes doubted that the Army intended to 

commit them to combat at all. 

It was necessary, the board declared, to avoid repetition of this experience. 

Advance planning was needed to develop a broader base of trained men among 

black troops to provide cadres and leaders to meet national emergencies more efficiently. The Army had to realize and take advantage of the advances made by 

Negroes in education, industry, and government service. The wide range of 

skills attained by Negroes had enhanced their military value and made possible 

a broader selectivity with consequent benefit to military efficiency. Thus, the 

Army had to adopt a racial policy that provided for the progressive and flexible 

usc of black manpower ''within proportions corresponding to those in the 

civilian population." This policy, it added, must "be implemented 

7Memo. Gen Gillem for CofS, 26 Oct 45, sub: Progress Rpt on Board Study of Utilization of Negro Man· 

power in the Post-War Army, WDCSA 291.2; sec also lnrcrv, Osur with Gillem. 8Memo, Gillem for CofS, 17 Nov 45. sub: Report of Board of General Officers on the Utilization of Negro 

Manpower in the Post· War Army. Unless otherwise noted this section is based on the report. 
156 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

promply . . must be objective by nature . . . must eliminate, at the earliest 

practicable moment, any special consideration based on race ... and should 

point cowards the immediate objective of an evaluation of the Negro on the 

basis of individual merit and ability.'' 

The board made eighteen specific recommendations, of which the following 

were the most important. 

"That combat and service units be organized and activated from the Negro 

manpower available in the postwar Army to meet the requirements of training 

and expansion and in addition qualified individuals be utilized in appropriate 

special and overhead units.'' The use of qualified Negroes in overhead units was 

the first break with the traditional policy of segregation, for though black 

enlisted men would continue to cat and sleep in segregated messes and barracks, 

they would work alongside white soldiers and perform the same kind of duty in 

the same unit. 

''The proportion of Negro co white manpower as exists in the civil population be the accepted ratio for creating a troop basis in the postwar Army.' '

9 

"That Negro units organized or activated for the postwar Army conform in 

general to other units of the postwar Army but the maximum strength of type 

[sic] units should not exceed that of an infantry regiment or comparable 

organization.'' Here the board wanted the Army to avoid the division-size units 

of World War II but retain separate black units which would be diversified 

enough to broaden the professional base of Negroes in the Regular Army by offering them a larger selection of military occupations. 

''That in the event of universal training in peacetime additional officer 

supervision is supplied co units which have a greater chan normal percentage of 

personnel falling into A.G .C.T. classifications IV and V." Such a policy had existed in World War II, but was never carried out. 

''That a staff group of selected officers whose background has included commanding troops be formed within the G-1 Division of the staffs of the War 

Department and each major command of the Army to assist in the planning, 

promulgation, implementation and revision of policies affecting all racial 

minorities.'' This was the administrative machinery the board wanted to 

facilitate the prompt and efficient execution of the Army's postwar racial 

policies. 

''That reenlistment be denied to regular Army soldiers who meet only the 

minimum standards.'' This provision was in line with the concept that the 

peacetime Army was a cadre to be expanded in time of emergency. As long as 

the Army accepted all reenlistments regardless of aptitude and halted black 

enlistments when black strength exceeded 10 percent, it would deny enlistment 

to many qualified Negroes. It would also burden the Army with low-scoring 

men who would never rise above the rank of private and whose usefulness in a 

9rhe 10 percent quota that eventually emerged from the Gillem Board was an approximation; Gillem later 

recalled that the World War II enlisted ratio was nearer 9.5 percent. but that General Eisenhower, the Chief of 

Star£, saying he could not remember that, suggested making it "an even 10 percent." Sec lntcrv, Osur with 

Gillem. 
NEW DIRECTIONS 157 

peacetime cadre, which had the function of training for wartime expansion, 

would be extremely limited . 

"That surveys of manpower requirements conducted by the War Department include recommendations covering the posi~ions in each installation of the 

Army which could be filled by Negro military personnel." This suggestion complemented the proposal to use Negroes in overhead positions on an individual 

basis. By opening more positions to Negroes, the Army would foster leadership, 

maintain morale, and encourage a competitive spirit among the better 

qualified. By forcing competition with whites "on an individual basis of 

merit,' ' the Army would become more attractive as a career to superior Negroes, 

who would provide many needed specialists as a I I nucleus for rapid expansion of 

Army units in time of emergency.'' 

"That groupings of Negro units with white units in composite organizations 

be continued in the postwar Army as a ·policy." Sin.ce World War II 

demonstrated that black units performed satisfactorily when grouped or 

operated with white combat !lnits, the inclusion of a black service company in a 

white regiment or a heavy weapons company in an infantry battalion could 

perhaps be accomplished "without encountering insurmountable difficulties." 

Such groupings would build up a professional relationship between blacks and 

whites, but, the board warned, experimentation must not risk "the disruption 

of civilian racial relationships.'' 

"That there be accepted into the Regular Army an unspecified number of 

qualified Negro officers . . . that all officers, regardless of race, be required to 

meet the same standard for appointment ... be accorded equal rights and opportunities for advancement and professional improvement; and be required to 

meet the same standard for appointment, promotion and retention in all components of the Army. ' ' The board set no limit on the number of black officers in 

the Army, nor did it suggest that black officers be restricted to service in black 

units. 

Its reporc rendered, the board remained in existence ready to make revisions 

"as may be warranted" by the comments of the many individuals and agencies 

that were to review the policy in conformance with a directive of the Secretary of 

War.

10 

No two individuals were more intimately concerned with the course of 

events that led to the Gillem Board Report than John ] . McCloy and Truman 

Gibson, and although both were about to leave government service, each gave 

the new Secretary of War his opinion of the report. 11 McCloy called the report a 

''fine achievement'' and a I' great advance over previous studies.'' It was most 

important, he said, that the board had stated the problem in terms of manpower efficiency. At the same time both men recognized ambiguities in the 

10Mcmo, Brig Gcn H. I. Hodes, ADCofS. for Gillem, 24 Nov 45, sub: War Department Special Board on 

Negro Management, WDCSA 320.2 (17 Nov 45). 11 Mcmo. Civilian Aide for ASW, 13 Nov 45, ASW 291.2 Negro Troops (Post War); Ltr, idem to SW, 13 

Nov 45; Memo, McCloy for Patterson. 24 Nov 45; Memo, Gibson for SW, 28 Nov 45. Last three in SW 291.2. 

The G ibson quote is from the 28 November memo. 
158 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

board's recommendations, and their criticisms were strong, precise, and, considering the conflicts that developed in the Army over these issues, remarkedly 

acute. Both agreed the report needed a clear statement on the basic issue of 

segregation, and they wanted the board to eliminate the quota. Gibson pointed 

out that the board proposed as a long-range objective the utilization of all persons on the basis of individual ability alone. ' 'This means, of course,' ' he announced with more confidence than was warranted, "a completely integrated 

Army.'' In the interest of eventually achieving an integrated Army he was willing ·to settle for less than immediate and total integration, but nevertheless he 

attacked the board for what he called the vagueness of its recommendations. 

Progressive and planned integration, he told Secretary Patterson, demanded a 

clear and explicit policy stating that segregation was outmoded and integration 

inevitable, and the Army should move firmly and steadily from one to the 

other. 

On some fundamental issues McCloy though t the board did ''not speak with 

the complete clarity necessary,'' but he considered the ambiguity unintentional. 

Experience showed, he reminded the secretary, "that we cannot get enforcement of policies that permit of any possibility of misconstruction.'' Directness, 

he said, was required in place of equivocation based on delicacy. If the Gillem 

Board intended black officers to command white officers and men, it should 

have said so flatly. If it meant the Army should try unsegregated and mixed 

units, it should have said so. Its report, McCloy concluded, should have put 

these matters beyond doubt. He was equally forthright in his rejection of the 

quota, which he found impractical because it deprived the Army of many 

qualified Negroes who would be unable to enlist when the quota was full. Even 

if the quota was meant as a floor rather than a ceiling, McCloy though t it objectionable. "I do not see any place, II he wrote, "for a quota in a policy that looks 

to utilize Negroes on the basis of ability. 11 

If the Gillem Board revealed the Army's willingness to compromise in 

treating a pressing efficiency problem, detailed comments by interested staff 

agencies revealed how military traditionalists hoped to avoid a pressing social 

problem. For just as McCloy and Gibson criticized the board for failing to spell 

out concrete procedures toward integration, other staff experts generally approved the board's report precisely because its ambiguities committed them to 

very little. Their specific criticisms, some betraying the biases of the times, 

formed the basis of the standard traditionalist defense of the racial status quo for 

the next five years. 

Comments from the staff's personnel organization set the tone of this 

criticism. 12 The Assistant Chief of Staff for Personnel, G-1, Maj. Gen. Willard 

S. Paul, approved the board's recommendations, calling them a "logical solution to the problem of effective utilization of Negro manpower.'' Although he 

12For examples of this extensive review of the Gillem Board Report in G-1. sec the following Memos: Col 

}. F. Cassidy (Exec Office, G-1) for Col Parks, 10 Dec 45; Chid, Officer Branch, G-1, for Exec Off, G-1 

Policy Group, 14 Dec 45; Actg Chief, Rcq and Res Br, for Chief. Policy Control Group, 14 Dec 45; Lt Col E. 

B. Jones, Special Projects Br, for G-1, 19 and 21 Dec 45, sub: Policy for Utilization of Negro Manpower in 

Post-War Army. All in WDGAP 291.2. 
NEW DIRECTIONS 159 

thought the repo~·t "sufficiently detailed to permit intelligent, effective planning," he passed along without comment the criticisms of his subordinates. He 

was opposed to the formation of a special staff group. ''We must soon reach the 

point," he wrote, "where our general staff must be able to cope with such problems without the formation of ad hoc committees or groups.'' 13 

The Assistant Chief of Staff for Organization and Training, G-3, Maj. Gen. 

Idwal H. Edwards, was chiefly concerned with the timing of the new policy. In 

trying to employ black manpower on a broader professional scale, he warned, 

the Army must recognize the "ineptitude and limited capacity of the Negro 

soldier." He wanted various phases of the new policy timed "with due consideration for all factors such as public opinion, military requirements and the 

military situation.'' If the priority given public opinion in the sequence of these 

factors reflected Edwards's view of their importance, the list is somewhat 

curious. Edwards concurred in the recommendations, although he wanted the 

special staff group established in the personnel office rather than in his 

organization, and he rejected any arbitrary percentage of black officers. More 

black officers could be obtained through expansion of the Reserve Officers' 

Training Corps, he suggested, but he rejected the board's call for special 

classification of all enlistees in reception and training centers, on grounds that 

the centers were not adequate for the task. 14 

The chief of the General Staff's Operations Division, Lt. Gen. John E. Hull, 

dismissed the Gillem report with several blunt statements: black enlisted men 

should be assigned to black units capable of operational use within white units 

at the rate of one black battalion per division; a single standard of professional 

proficiency should be followed for white and black officers; and "no Negro officer be given command of white troops.'' 15 

The deputy commander of the Army Air Forces, Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker, 

agreed with the board that the Army should not be • 'a testing ground for problems in race relationships." Neither did he think the Air Forces shouJd organize 

units for the sole purpose of "advancing the prestige of one race, especially 

when it is necessary to utilize personnel that do not have the proper qualifications in order to keep these units up to strength." Black combat units should be 

limited by the 10 percent quota and by the small number of Negroes qualified 

for tactical training. Most Negroes should be placed in Air Forces service units, 

where • ·their wartime record was the best,'' even though such placement would 

leave the Air Forces open to charges of discrimination. The idea of experimental 

groupings of black and white units in composite organizations might prove 

"impractical," Eaker wrote to the Chief of Staff, because an Air Forces group 

operated as an integral unit rather than as three or four separate squadrons; 

units often exchanged men and equipment, and common messes were used. 

13Mcmo, Gcn Paul, G-1, for CofS, 27 Dec 45, sub: Policy for Utilization of Negro Manpower in Post·War 

Army. WDGAP 291.2 (24 Nov45). 

~G-3 Summary Sheet to ADCofS, 2 Jan 46, sub: War Department Special Board on Negro Manpower, 

WDGCT 291.21 (24 Nov 45). 

15Mcmo, Lt Gen John E. Hull, ACofS. OPD (signed Brig GenE. D. Post, Dep Chief, Theater Gp. OPD), 

for ACofS. G-3. 4 Jan 46, sub: War Department Special Board on Negro Manpower, WDGCT 291.21 . 
160 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Composite organizations were practical "only when it is not necessary for the 

units to intermingle continually in order to carry on efficiently." Why interJflingliog could not be synonymous with efficiency, he failed to explain . The inference was clear that segregation was nor only normal but best. 

Yet he advocated continuing integrated flying schools and agreed that 

Negroes should be stationed where community attitudes were favorable. He 

cited the difficulties involved in stationing. For more than two years the Army 

Air Forces had tried to find a suitable base for its only black tactical group. Even 

in northern cities with large black communities- Syracuse, New York, Columbus, Ohio, and Windsor Locks, Connecticut, among others-officials had 

vehemently protested against having the black group. 

The War Department, Eaker concluded, ''should never be ahead of popular 

opinion on this subject; otherwise it will put itself in a position of stimulating 

racial disorders rather than overcoming them.'' Along these lines, and harking 

back to the Freeman Field incident, he protested against regulations reaffirmed 

by the Gillem Board for the joint use of clubs, theaters, post exchanges, and the 

like at stations in localities where such use was contrary to civilian practices. 16 

The Army Ground Forces headquarters concurred generally with the Gillem 

Board's conclusions and recommendations but suggested the Army nor act 

alone. The headquarters recommended a policy be form ulated for the entire 

military establishment; only then should individual elements of the armed 

forces come forward with their own policies. The idea that Negroes should serve 

in numbers proportionate to their percentage of the population and bear their 

share of battle losses " may be desirable but is impracticable and should be 

abandoned in the interest of a logical solution." 17 Since the abilities of Negroes 

were limited, the report concluded, their duties should be restricted . 

The commanding general of the Army Service Forces claimed the Gillem 

Board Report was advocating substantially the same policy his organization had 

followed during the war. The Army Service Forces had successfully used an even 

larger percentage of Negroes than the Gillem Board contemplated. Concurring 

generally with the board's recommendations, he cautioned that the War 

Department should not dictate the use of Negroes in the field; to do so would 

be a serious infringement of command prerogatives that left each commander 

free to select and assign his men. As for the experimental groupings of black and 

white units, the general believed that such mixtures were appropriate for combat units but not for the separate small units common to the Army Service 

Forces. Separate, homogeneous companies or battalions formed during the war 

worked well, and experience proved mixed units impractical below group and 

regimental echelons. 

16 1st Ind . Lt Gcn Ira C. Eaker, Deputy Cmdr. AAF. to CofS, 19 Dec 4~. sub: \Y/ar Departmcm Special 

Board on Negro Manpower, copy at Tab H, Supplemental Report of Board of Officers on Utilization of Negro 

an~ower in the Post-\Y/ar Army. 26 Jan 46, copy in CMH. 1 Memo, Lt Col S. R. Knight (for CG. AGI") for CofS, 18 Dec 4~. sub: Army Ground Forces Comments 

and Recommendations on Report of the \Y/ar Department Special Board (Gillem) on Negro Manpower, dated 

17 Nov 4~. GNGPS 370.01 (18 Dec 4~): AGF Study. "Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar Military 

Establishment," 28 Nov 45, forwarded t{) CofS. A'ITN: Dir, \Y/D Special Planning Div, GNDCG 370.01 (28 

Nov 4~)-
NEW DIRECTIONS 161 

The Service Forces commander called integration infeasible ''for the }5resent 

and foreseeable future.'' It was unlawful in many areas, he pointed out, and not 

common practice elsewhere, and requiring soldiers to follow a different social 

pattern would damage morale and defeat the Army's effort to increase the opportunities and effectiveness of black soldiers. He did not try to justify his contention, but h is meaning was clear. It would be a mistake for the Army to attempt to lead the nation in such reforms, especially while reorganization, 

unification, and universal military training were being considered. 18 

Reconvened in January 1946 to consider the comments on its original report, 

the Gillem Board deliberated for two more weeks, heard additional witnesses, 

and stood firm in its conclusions and recommendations. 19 The policy it proposed, the board emphasized, had one purpose, the attainment of maximum 

manpower efficiency in time of national emergency. To achieve this end the 

armed forces must make full use of Negroes now in service, but future use of 

black manpower had to be based on the experience gained in two major wars. 

The board considered the policy it was proposing flexible, offering opportunity 

for advancement to qualified individuals and at the same time making possible 

for the Army an economic use of national manpower as a whole. 

To its original report the board added a statement at once the hope and 

despair of its critics and supporters. 

The Initial Objectives: The utilization of the proportionate ratio of the manpower 

made available to the military establishment during the postwar period. The manpower 

potential to be organized and trained as indicated by pertinent recommendations. 

The Ultimate Objective: The effective use of all manpower made available to the 

military establishment in the event of a major mobilization at some unknown date 

against an undetermined aggressor. The manpower to be utilized, in the event of 

another major war, in the Army without regard to antecedents or race. 

When, and if such a contingency arises, the manpower of the nation should be 

utilized in the best interests of the national security. 

The Board cannot, and docs not, attempt to visualize at this time, intermediate objectives. Between the first and ultimate objective, timely phasing 

may be interjected and adjustments made in accordance with conditions which 

may obtain at this undetermined date. 

The board based its ultimate objective on the fact that the black community had 

made important advances in education and job skills in the past generation, and 

it expected economic and educational conditions for Negroes to continue to improve. Since such improvement would make it possible to employ black manpower in a variety of ways, the board's recommendations could be only a guide 

for the future, a policy that must remain flexible. 

To the specific objections raised by the reviewing agencies, the board replied 

that although black units eventually should be commanded by black officers 

"no need exists for the assignment of Negro commanders to units composed of 

18Memo. Maj Gen Daniel Noce, Actg CofS, ASF. for CofS, 28 Dec 4~. sub: War Department Special 

Board on Negro Manpower, copy at Tab J, Supplemental Report of War Department Special Board on Negro 

Man~ower. 26 Jan 46, CMH files. 1 Supplemental Report of War Dep:mmcm Special Board on Negro Manpower. "Policy for Utilization of 

Negro Manpower in the Post· War Army," 26 Jan 46. The following quotations are taken from this amended 

version of the Gillem Board Report, a copy of which. with all tabs and annexes, is in CMH. 
162 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

white troops.'' It also agreed with those 

who felt it would be beneficial to correlate Army racial policies with those of 

the Navy. On other issues the board 

stood firm. It rejected the proposal that 

individual commanders be permitted to 

choose positions where Negroes could 

be employed in overhead installations 

on the grounds that this delegation of 

responsibility "hazards lack of uniformity and makes results doubtful." It 

refused to drop the quota, arguing it 

was needed for planning purposes. At 

the same time the board did admit that 

the 10 percent ratio, suitable for the 

moment, might be changed in the 

future in the interest of efficiency-though changed in which way 

it did not say. 

The board rejected the proposition SECRETARY PATTERSON 

that the Army Service Forces and the Army Air Forces were unable to use small 

black units in white organizations and took a strong stand for elimination of the 

professional private, the career enlistee lacking the background or ability to advance beyond the lowest rank. Finally, the board rejected demands that the color line be reestablished in officers' messes and enlisted recreational facilities. 

''This large segment of the population contributed materially to the success attained by our military forces .... The Negro enjoyed the privileges of citizenship and, in turn, willingly paid the premium by accepting service. In many instances, this payment was settled through the medium of the supreme 

sacrifice.'' 

The board's recommendations were well received, at least in the highest 

echelons of the War Department. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, now Chief of 

Staff, 20 quickly sent the proposed policy to the Secretary of War with a recommendation for approval "subject to such adjustment as experience shows is 

necessary. " 21 On 28 February 1946 Secretary Patterson approved the new policy 

in a succinct restatement of the board's recommendations. The policy and the 

full Gillem Board Report were published as War Department Circular 124 on 27 

April 1946. At the secretary's direction the circular was dispatched to the field 

''without delay.' '

22 On 4 March the report was released to the press. 23 The most 

20Eisenhower succeeded Marshall as Chief of Staff on 19 November 1945. 21 Mcmo, CofS for SW. I Feb 46. sub: Supplemental Report of Board of Officers on Utilization of Negro 

Man~ower in the Post-War Army, WDCSA 320.2 (I Feb 46). 2 Ltr, TAG for CG's, AGF et al. , 6 May 46. sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Post-War Army. 

WDGAP 291.2. 

23wo Press Release. 4 Mar 46. "Report of Board of Officers on Utilization of Negro Manpower in the 

Posr-War Army." 
NEW DIRECTIONS 163 

exhaustive and intensive inqujry ever made by the Army into the employment 

of black manpower had surviv-ed the review and analysis process with its conclusions and recommendations intact. 

Attitudes toward the new policy varied with interpretations of the board's 

statement of objectives. Secretary Patterson saw in the report "a significant 

development in the status of the Negro soldiers in the Army." The immediate 

effect of using Negroes in composite units and overhead assignments, he 

predicted, would be to change War Department policy on segregation. 24 But 

the success of the policy could not be guaranteed by a secretary of war, and some 

of his advisers were more guarded in their estimates. To Truman Gibson, once 

again in government service, but briefly this time, the report seemed a good 

beginning because it offered a new approach, one that had originated within 

the Army itself. Yet Gibson was wary of its chances for success. The board's 

recommendations, he told the Assistant Secretary of War, would make for a better Army ''only if they are effectively carried out.' '

25 The newly appointed assistant secretary, Howard C. Petersen, was equally cautious. Explaining the meaning of the report to the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association, he warned 

that ''a strong policy weakly enforced will be of little value to the Army.' '

26 

Marcus H. Ray, Gibson's successor as the secretary's adviser on racial 

affairs, 27 stressed the board's ultimate objective to employ manpower without 

regard to race and called its recommendations "a seep in the direction of efficient manpower utilization.'' It was a necessary step, he added, because ''any 

racial group which lives under the stigma of implied inferiority inherent in a 

system of enforced separation cannot give over-all top performance in peace or 

in war.' '

28 

On the whole, the black community was considerably less sanguine about 

the new policy. The Norfolk Journal and Guide called the report a step in the 

right direction, but reserved judgment until the Army carried out the recommendations. 

29 To a distinguished black historian who was writing an account of 

the Negro in World War II, the Gillem Board Report reflected the Army's ambiguity on racial matters. "It is possible," L. D. Reddick of the New York 

Public Library wrote, "to interpret the published recommendations as pointing 

in opposite directions." 30 One NAACP official charged that it "tries to dilute 

Jim-Crow by presenting it on a smaller scale.'' After citing the tremendous advances made by Negroes and all the reasons for ending segregation, he accused 

24Mcmo, SW for CofS, 28 Feb 46, WDCSA 320.2 (28 Feb 46). 

~Memo, Truman Gibson, Expert Consultant to the SW, for Howard C. Petersen, 28 Feb 46, ASW 29 1.2 

Negro Troops (Post-War). 26Remarks of rhe Assisrant Secretary of War at Luncheon for Negro Newspaper Publishers Association, 1 

Mar46, ASW 291.2. 27Ray, a former commander of an artillery battalion in the 92d Infantry Division. was appointed civilian 

aide on 2 January 1946; see WD Press Release, 7 Jan 46. 28Lu, Marcus Ray to Capt Warman K. Welliver. 10 Apr 46, copy in CMH. Welliver, the commander of a 

black unit during the war, was a student of the subject of Negroes in the Army; sec his "Report on the Negro 

Soldier." 2

9Norfolkjoumal 1111d Guide, March 9. 1946. 

30Ltr, L. D. Reddick, N .Y. Pub. Lib., to SW, 12 Mar46, SW 291. 
164 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

the Gillem Board of refusing to take the last step. 31 Most black papers adopted 

the same attitude 1 characterizing the new policy as " the same old Army." The 

Pittsburgh Courier, for one, observed that the new policy meant that the Army 

command had undergone no real change of heart. 32 Other segments of the 

public were more fore bearing. One veterans' organization commended the War 

Department for the work of the Gillem Board but called its analysis and recommendations incomplete. Citing evidence that Jim Crow, not the enemy, 

"defeated" black combat units, the chairman of the American Veterans Committee called for an immediate end to segregation. 33 

Clearly, opposition to segregation was not going to be overcome with 

palliatives and promises, yet Petersen could only affirm that the Gillem Board 

Report would mean significant change. He admitted segregation's tenacious 

hold on Army thinking and that black units would continue to exist for some 

time, but he promised movement toward desegregation. He also made the 

Army's usual distinction between segregation and discrimination. Though there 

were many instances of unfair treatment during the war, he noted, these were 

individual matters, inconsistent with Army policy, which "has consistently condemned discrimination. " Discrimination, he concluded, must be blamed on 

"defects" of enforcement, which would always exist to some degree in any 

organization as large as the Army. 34 

Actually, Petersen's promised "movement" toward integration was likely to 

be a very slow p rocess. So substantive a change in social practice, the Army had 

always argued, required the sustained support of the American public, and 

judging from War Department correspondence and press notices large segments 

of the public remained unaware of what the Army was trying to do about its 

"Negro problem." Most military journalists continued to ignore the issue; 

perhaps they considered the subject of the employment of black troops unimportant compared with the problems of demobilization, atomic weaponry, and 

service unification. For example, in listing the principal military issues before 

the United States in the postwar period, military analyst Hanson Baldwin did 

not mention the employment of Negroes in the service . 

35 

Given the composition of the Gillem Board and the climate of opinion in 

the nation, the report was exemplary and fair, its conclusions progressive. If in 

the light of later developments the recommendations seem timid, even superficial, it should be remembered to its credit that the board at least made integration a long-range goal of the Army and made permanent the wartime guarantee 

of a substantial black representation. 

Nevertheless the ambiguities in the Gillem Board's recommendations would 

be useful to those commanders at all levels of the Army who were devoted to the 

31

Ltr, Bernard Jackson. Youth Council, NAACP Boston Br. to AS\XI, 4 Apr46, AS\XI 291.2 (N'D. 

32piusburgh Courier, May 11 , 1946. 

HLtr, Charles G. Bolte. Chmn, Amcr Vers Cmce. to S\XI. 8 Mar 46: sec also Ltr, Ralph DcNat, Corr Sccy. 

A mer Vets Cmtc, to S\XI, 28 May 46, both in S\XI 291.2 (Cmtc} (9 Aug 46}. 34Ltrs, AS\XI to Bernard H. Solomon and to Bernard Jackson. 9 Apr 46. both in AS\XI 291.2. 

nHanson Baldwin, "Wanted: An American Military Policy," Harper's 192 (May 1946}:403-13. 
NEW DIRECTIONS 165 

racial status quo. Gillem and his colleagues discussed black soldiers in terms of 

social problems rather than military efficiency. As a result, their recommendations treated the problem from the standpoint of how best Negroes could be 

employed within the traditional segregated framework even while they spoke of 

integration as an ultimate goal. They gave their blessing to the continued existence of segregated units and failed to inquire whether segregation might not 

be a factor in the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of black units and black 

soldiers. True, they sought to use qualified Negroes in specialist jobs as a solution to better employment of black manpower, but this effort could have little 

practical effect. Few were qualified- and determination of qualifications was 

often done by those with little sympathy for the Negro and even less for the 

educated Negro. Black serviceman holding critical specialties and those assigned 

to overhead installations would never amount to more than a handful of men 

whose integration during duty hours only would fall far short even of tokenism . 

To point out as the board did that the policy it was recommending no longer 

required segregation was meaningless. Until the Army ordered integration, 

segregation, simply by virtue of inertia, would remain. As McCloy, along with 

Gibson and others, warned, without a strong, explicit statement of intent by the 

Army the changes in Army pra<:tice suggested by the Gillem Board would be insignificant. The very acceptance of the board's report by officials traditionally 

opposed to integration should have been fair warning that the report would be 

difficult to use as a base for a progressive racial policy; in fact it could be used to 

justify almost any course of action. From the start, the War Department encountered overwhelming difficulties in carrying out the board's recommendations, and five years later the ultimate objective was still out of reach . 

Clearly, the majority of Army officers viewed segregated service as the 

acceptable norm. General Jacob L. Devers, then commanding general of Army 

Ground Forces, gave a clue to their view when he told his fellow officers in 1946 

that "we are going to put colored battalions in white divisions. This is purely 

business- the social side will not be brought into it." 36 Here then was the 

dilemma: Was not the Army a social institution as weii as a fighting organization? The solution to the Army's racial problems could not be achieved by ignoring the social implications. On both counts there was a reluctance among 

many professional soldiers to take in Negroes. They registered acute social 

discomfort at the large influx of black soldiers, and many who had devoted their 

lives to military service had very real misgivings over using Negroes in white 

combat units or forming new black combat 'units because they felt that black 

fighters in the air and on the ground had performed badly in the past. To entrust the fighting to Negroes who had failed to prove their competence in this 

highest mission of the Army seemed to them to threaten the institution itself. 

Despite these shortcomings, the work of the Gillem Board was a progressive 

step in the history of Army race relations. It broke with the assumption implicit 

in earlier Army policy that the black soldier was inherently inferior by recom36Rcmarks by Gcn J. L. Devers, Armored Conference Report, 16 May 46. 
166 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

mending that Negroes be assigned tasks as varied and skilled as those handled 

by white soldiers. It also made integration the Army's goal by declaring as official policy the ultimate employment of all manpower without regard to race. 

Even the board's insistence on a racial quota, it could be argued, had its positive 

aspects, for in the end it was the presence of so many black soldiers in the 

Korean War that finally ended segregation. In the meantime, controversy over 

the quota, whether it represented a floor supporting minimum black participation or a ceiling limiting black enlistment, continued unabated, providing the 

civil rights groups with a foca l point for their complaints. No matter how hard 

the Army tried to justify the quota, the quota increased the Army's vulnerability to charges of discrimination. 

Integration of the General Service 

The Navy's postwar revision of racial policy, like the Army's, was the inevitable result of its World War II experience. Inundated with unskilled and 

undereducated Negroes in the middle of the war, the Navy had assigned most of 

these men to segregated labor battalions and was surprised by the racial clashes 

that followed. As it began to understand the connection between large 

segregated units and racial tensions, the Navy also came to question the waste of 

the talented Negro in a system that denied him the job for which he was 

qualified. Perhaps more to the point, the Navy's size and mission made immediately necessary what the Army could postpone indefinitely. Unlike the 

Army, the Navy seriously modified its racial policy in the last year of the war, 

breaking up some of the large segregated units and integrating Negroes in the 

specialist and officer training schools, in the WAVES, and finally in the auxiliary fleet and the recruit training centers. 

Yet partial integration was not enough. Lester Granger's surveys and the 

studies of the secretary's special committee had demonstrated that the Navy 

could resolve its racial problems only by providing equal treatment and opportunity. But the absurdity of trying to operate two equal navies, one black and 

one white, had been obvious during the war. Only total integration of the 

general service could serve justice and efficiency, a conclusion the civil rights advocates had long since reached. After years of leaving the Navy comparatively at 

peace, they now began to demand total integration. 

There was no assurance, however, that a move to integration was imminent 

when Granger returned from his final inspection trip for Secretary Forrestal in 

October 194 S. Both Granger and the secretary's Committee on Negro Personnel 

had endorsed the department's curren't practices, and Granger had been 

generally optimistic over the reforms instituted toward the end of the war. Admirals Nimitz and King both endorsed Granger's recommendations, although 

neither saw the need for further change. 37 For his part Secretary Forrestal seemed 

determined to maintain the momentum of reform. "What steps do we take," 

37Lrr, CINCPAC&POA to SecNav via Ch, NavPcrs, 30 Oct 45, sub: Negro Naval Personnel- Pacific 

Ocean Areas, and 2d lnd, CNO, 7 Dec 45. same sub, both in PI6-3/MM, OpNavArchivcs. 
NEW DIRECTIONS 

ADMIRAL DENFELD 

167 

he asked the Chief of Naval Personnel, 

''to correct the various practices 

. . . which are not in accordance with 

Navy standards?" 38 

In response the Bureau of Naval 

Personnel circulated the Granger 

reports throughout the Navy and 

ordered steps to correct practices identified by Granger as "not in accordance 

with Navy standards. " 39 But it was soon 

apparent that the bureau would be 

selective in adopting Granger's suggestions. In November, for example, the 

Chief of Naval Personnel, Admiral 

Louis E. Denfeld, arguing that officers 

''could handle black personnel without 

any special indoctrination," urged the 

secretary to reject Granger's recommendation that an office be established in 

headquarters to deal exclusively with 

racial problems. At the same time some of the bureau's recruiting officials were 

informing Negroes that their reenlistment in the Regular Navy was to be limited 

to the Steward's Branch.40 With the help of Admiral Nimitz, Chief of Naval 

Operations, Forrestal quickly put an end to this recruiting practice, but he paid 

no further attention to racial matters except to demand in mid-December a progress report on racial reforms in the Pacific area. 41 Nor did he seem disturbed 

when the Pacific commander reported a large number of all-black units, some 

with segregated recreational facilities, o,gerating in the Pacific area as part of the 

permanent postwar naval organization. 2 

In the end the decision to integrate the general service came not from the 

secretary but from that bastion of military tradition, the Bureau of Naval Personnel. Despite the general reluctance of the bureau to liberalize the Navy's 

racial policy, there had been all along some manpower experrs who wanted to 

increase the number of specialties open to black sailors. Capt. Hunter Wood, 

Jr., for example, suggested in January 1946 that the bureau make plans for an 

expansion in assignments for Negroes. Wood's proposal fell on the sympathetic 

38Mcmo, J. F. for Adm Jacobs. 23 Aug 45. 54-1-13, Forrcsul file, GenRecsNav. 

39Memo, Am Ch, NavPcrs, for SccNav, 10 Sep 45. sub: Ur Memo of August 23, 1945. Relative to Lester 

B. Granger ... 54-1- 13. Forresral file, GcnRccsNav. 40 lst Ind. Chief, NavPcrs, tO Lt.r, CINCPAC&POA to SccNav, 30 Oct 45, sub: Negro Personnel- Pacific 

Ocean Areas (ca. 15 Nov 45). P16-3MM, OpNavArchivcs; Memo. M. F. Correa (Admin Asst to SccNav) for 

Capt Robert N. McFarlane, 30 Nov 45, 54-1-13. Forrest a I file. GenReesNav. 41Forrcstal's request for a progress report was circulated in CNO Dispatch 142105Z Dec 45 to 

CINCPAC&POA, quoted in Nelson, "Integration of the Negro," p. 58. 

42Mcmo, CINCPAC&POA for CNO, 5 Jan 46, sub: Negro Naval Personnel- Pacific Ocean Areas, 

PIO/PII, OpNavArchives. 
168 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

ears of Admiral Denfeld, who considered the Granger recommendations practical for the postwar Navy. Denfeld, of course, was well aware that these recommendations had been endorsed by Admirals King and Nimitz as well as Forreseal, and he himself had gone on record as believing that Negroes in the 

peacetime Navy should lose none of the opportunities opened to them during 

the war.43 

Denfeld had had considerable experience with the Navy's evolving racial 

policy in his wartime assignment as assistant chief of personnel where his principal concern had been the efficient distribution and assignment of men. He 

particti.larly objected to the fact that current regulations complicated what 

should have been the routine transfer of sailors. Simple control procedures for 

the segregation of Negroes in general service had been effective when Negroes 

were restricted to particular shore stations and duties, he told Admiral Nimitz 

on 4 January 1946, but now that Negroes were frequently being transferred 

from shore to sea and from ship to ship the restriction of Negroes to auxiliary 

ships was becoming extremely difficult to manage and was also "noticeably contrary to the non-differentiation policy enunciated by the Secretary of the Navy.'' 

The only way to execute that policy effectively and maintain efficiency, he concluded, was to integrate the general service completely. Denfeld pointed out 

that the admission of Negroes to the auxiliary fleet had caused little friction in 

the Navy and passed almost unnoticed by the press. Secretary Forrestal had 

promised to extend the use of Negroes throughout the entire fleet if the 

preliminary program proved practical, and the time had come to fulfill that 

promise. He would start with ''the removal of restrictions governing the type of 

duty to which general service Negroes can be assigned," but would limit the 

number of Negroes on any ship or at any shore Station to a rercentage no greater 

than that of general service Negroes throughout the Navy. 4 

With the enlistment of the Chief of Naval Personnel in the cause, the move 

to an integrated general service was assured. On 27 February 1946 the Navy 

published Circular Letter 48-46: "Effective immediately all restrictions governing types of assignments for which Negro naval personnel are eligible are hereby 

lifted. Henceforth, they shall be eligible for all types of assignments in all 

ratings in all activities and all ships of naval service." The letter went on to 

specify that '• in housing. messing, and other facilities, there would be no special 

accommodations for Negroes." It also directed a redistribution of personnel by 

administrative commands so that by 1 October 1946 no ship or naval activity 

would be more than 10 percent Negro. The single exception would be the Naval 

Academy, where a large contingent of black stewards would be left intact to 

serve the midshipmen's meals. 

The publication of Circular Letter 48-46 was an important step in the 

Navy's racial history. In less than one generation, in fewer years actually than 

the average sailor's service life, the Navy had made a complete about-face. In a 

43Admiral Dcnfcld's scaccmcnt co the black press representatives in chis regard is referred co in Memo. 

Cape H. Wood , Jr .. for Chief, NavPers, 2 Jan 46. P16-3/MM. BuPcrsRecs. 

44Ltr, Chief. NavPers. 10 CNO, 4 Jan 46. sub: Assignment of Negro Personnel, Pl6-3MM. BuPcrsRccs. 
NEW DIRECTIONS 169 

sense che new policy was a service reform rather than a social revolution; after a 

23-year hiatus integration had once again become che Navy's standard racial 

policy. Since headlines are more often reserved for revolutions than reformations, the new policy attracted little attention. The metropolitan press gave 

minimum coverage to the event and never bothered co follow later 

developments. For the most part the black press treated the Navy's announcement with skepticism. On behalf of Secretary Forrestal, Lester Granger invited 

twenty-three leading black editors and publishers to inspect ships in the fleet as 

well as shore activities to see for themselves the changes being made. Not one accepted. As one veteran put ic , the editors shrank from praising the Navy's policy 

change for fear of being proved hasty. They preferred to remain on safe ground, 

"givin' 'em hell. " 4) 

The editors had every reason to be wary: integration was seriously circumscribed in the new directive, which actually offered few guarantees of immediate change. Applying only to enlisted men in the shore establishment and 

on ships, the directive ignored the Navy's all-white officer corps and its nonwhite servants branch of stewards. Aimed at abolishing discrimination in the 

service, it failed to guarantee either through enlistment, assignment guidelines, 

or specific racial quotas a fair proportion of black sailors in the postwar Navy. 

Finally, the order failed to create administrative machinery to carry out the new 

policy. In a very real sense the new policy mirrored tradition. It was naval tradition to have black sailors in che integrated ranks and a separate Messman's 

Branch. The return co this tradition embodied in the order complemented Forreseal's philosophy of change as an outgrowth of self-realized reform. At the 

same time naval tradition did not include the concept of high-ranking black officers, white servants, and Negroes in specialized assignments. Here Forrestal's 

hope of self-reform did not materialize, and equal treatment and opportunity 

for Negroes in the Navy remained an elusive goal. 

But Forrestal and his military subordinates made enough of a start to draw 

the fire of white segregationists. The secretary answered charges and demands in 

a straightforward manner. When, for example, a congressman complained that 

·'white boys are being forced to sleep with these negroes,'' Forrestal explained 

chat men were quartered and messed aboard ship according co their place in the 

ship's organization without regard co race. The Navy made no attempt to 

prescribe the nature or extent of their social relationships, which were beyond 

the scope of its authority. Although Forrestal expressed himself as understanding the strong feelings of some Americans on this matter, he made it clear that 

the Navy had finally decided segregation was the surest way co emphasize and 

perpetuate the gap between the races and had therefore adopted a policy of integration. 

46 

What Forrestal said was true, but the translation of the Navy's postwar racial 

policy into the widespread practice of equal treatment and opportunity for 

4) As reponed in Ltr, Granger to author, 25 Jun 69, CMH files. 46Ltr, Congressman Stephen Pace of Georgia to Forrcstal, 22 Jun 46; Ltr, Forrcstal to Pace, 14 Aug 46, 

both in 54-1-13. Forrcstal file, GenRccsNav. 
170 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Negroes was still before him and his officers. To achieve it they would have to 

fight the racism common in many segments of American society as well as 

bureaucratic inertia. If put into practice the new policy might promote the efficient use of naval manpower and give the Navy at least a brief respite from the 

criticism of civil rights advocates, but because of Forrestal's failure to give clearcut direction- a characteristic of his approach to racial reform-the Navy might 

well find itself proudly trumpeting a new policy while continuing its old racial 

pracuces. 

The Marine Corps 

As part of the naval establishment, the Marine Corps fell under the strictures 

of Secretary Forrestal's announced policy of racial nondiscriminationY At the 

same time the Marine Corps was administratively independent of the Chief of 

Naval Operations and the Chief of Naval Personnel, and Circular Letter 48- 46, 

which desegregated the Navy's general service, did not apply to the corps. In the 

development of manpower policy the corps was responsible to the Navy, in 

organization it closely resembled the Army, but in size and tradition it was 

unique. Each of these factors contributed to the development of the corps' racial 

policy and helped explain its postwar racial practices. 

Because of the similarities in organization and mission between the Army 

and the Marine Corps, the commandant leaned toward the Army's solution for 

racial problems. The Army staff had contended that racially separate service was 

not discriminatory so long as it was equal, and through its Gillem Board policy it 

accepted the responsibility of guaranteeing that Negroes would be represented 

in equitable numbers and their treatment and opportunity would be similar to 

that given whites. Since the majority of marines served in the ground units of 

the Fleet Marine Force, organized like the Army in regiments, battalions, and 

squadrons with tables of organization and equipment, the formation of racially 

separate units presented no great problem. 

Although the Marine Corps was similar to the Army in organization, it was 

very different in size and tradition. With a postwar force of little more than 

100,000 men, the corps was hardly able to guarantee its segregated Negroes 

equal treatment and opportunity in terms of specialized training and variety of 

assignment. Again in contrast to the Army and Navy with their long tradition of 

Negroes in service, the Marine Corps, with a few unauthorized exceptions, had 

been an exclusively white organization since 1798. This habit of racial exclusion 

was strengthened by those feelings of intimacy and fraternity natural to any 

small bureaucracy. In effect the marines formed a small club in which practically 

everybody knew everybody else and was reluctant to admit strangers.48 Racial exclusion often warred with the corps' clear duty to provide the fair and equal service for all Americans authorized by the Secretary of the Navy. At one point the 

47Thc latest pronouncement of that policy was ALNAV 423-45. 48Scc: USMC Oral History Interviews, Lt Gc:n James L. Underhill. 25 Mar 68. and Lt Gcn Ray A. Robinson, 

18 Mar 68. both in Hist Div. HQMC. 
NEW DIRECTIONS 171 

commandant, General Alexander Vandegrift, even had to remind his local commanders that black marines would in fact be included in the postwar corps.49 

One other factor influenced the policy deliberations of the Marine Corps: its 

experiences with black marines during World War II. Overshadowing the praise 

commanders gave the black depot companies were reports of the trials and 

frustrations suffered by those who trained the large black combat units. Many 

Negroes trained long and hard for antiaircraft duty, yet a senior group commander found them ill-suited to the work because of I I emotional instability and 

lack of appreciation of materiel.'' One battery commander cited the 

"mechanical ineptitude" of his men; another fell back on "racial characteristics 

of the Negro as a whole" to explain his unit's difficulty.~0 Embodying rash 

generalization and outright prejudice, the reports of these commanders circulated in Marine Corps headquarters, also revealed that a large group of black 

marines experienced enough problems in combat training to cast serious doubt 

on the reliability of the defense battalions. This doubt alone could explain the 

corps' decision to relegate the units to the backwaters of the war zone. Seeing 

only the immediate shortcomings of the large black combat units, most commanders ignored the underlying reasons for the failure. The controversial commander of the 51st Defense Battalion, Col. Curtis W. LeGette, H however, gave 

his explanation to the commandant in some detail. He reported that more than 

half the men in the 51st as it prepared for overseas deployment-most of them 

recent draftees-were in the two lowest categories, IV and V, for either general 

classification or mechanical aptitude. That some 212 of the noncommissioned 

officers of the units were also in categories IV and V was the result of the unit's 

effort to carry out the commandant's order to replace white noncommissioned 

officers as quickly as possible. The need to develop black noncommissioned officers was underscored by LeGette, who testified to a growing resentment among 

his black personnel at the assignment of new white noncoms. Symptomatic of 

the unit's basic problems in 1944 was what LeGette called an evolving "occupational neurosis'' among white officers forced to serve for lengthy periods with 

black marines. 52 

The marines experienced far fewer racial problems than either the Army or 

Navy during the war, but the difficulties that occurred were nonetheless important in the development of postwar racial policy. The basic cause of race 

49Mcmo. CO. 26th Marine Depot Co., Fifth Service Depot, Second FMF, Pacific, for CMC. 2 Nov 45, with 

lnds, sub: Information Concerning Peacetime Colored Marine Corps, Request for; Memos, CMC for CG, FMF 

(Pacific), et al., 11 Dec 45. sub: Voluntary Enlistments, Negro Marines, in Regular Marine Corps, Assignment 

of Quotas; idem for Cmdr, MCAB, Cherry Point, N.C., et al., 14 Dec 45 . Unless otherwise noted, all 

documents cited in this section are located in Hist Div, HQMC. 

)

0AAA Gp. 51st Defense Bn, FMF. Montford Pt., Gp Cmdr's Endorsement on Annual Record Pracrice, 

Year 1943. 20 Dec 43; AAA Gp, 51st Defense Bn, FMF, Montford Pt., Battery Cmdr's Narrative Report of 

Record Practice, 1943, 21 Dec 43: idem, Battery Cmdr's Narrative Rpt (signed R. H. Twisdale) (ca. 20 Dec 

43). 

) 1For the extensive charges and countercharges concerning the controversy between Colonel LeGette and 

his ~redecessor in the 51st, see files of Hist Div, HQMC. 2Memo, CO, 51st Defense Bn, FMF, for CMC, 20 Jul44, sub: Combat Efficiency, Fifty-First Defense Bat· 

talion, Serial 1085. 
172 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

problems was the rigid concentration of 

often undertrained and undereducated 

men, who were subjected to racial slurs 

and insensitive treatment by some 

white officials and given little chance to 

serve in preferred military specialties or 

to advance in the labor or defense units 

or steward details to which they were invariably consigned . But this basic cause 

was ignored by Marine Corps planners 

when they discussed the postwar use of 

Negroes. They preferred to draw other 

lessons from the corps' warcime experience. The employment of black 

marines in small, self-contained units 

performing traditional laboring tasks 

was justified precisely because the 

average black draftee was less welleducated and experienced in the use of 

the modern equipment. Furthermore, GENERAL THOMAS 

the correctness of this procedure seemed to be demonStrated by the fact that the 

corps had been relatively free of the flareups that plagued the other services. 

Many officials would no doubt have preferred to eliminate race problems by 

eliminating Negroes from the corps altogether. Failing this, they were determined that regular black marines continue to serve in those assignments performed by black marines during the war: in service units, stewards billers, and a 

few antiaircraft artillery units, the postwar successors to defense battalions. H 

The development of a postwar racial policy to carry out the Navy Department's nondiscrimination order in the Marine Corps fell to the Division of Plans 

and Policies and its director, Brig. Gen. Gerald C. Thomas. It was a complicated 

task, and General Thomas and his staff after some delay established a series of 

guidelines intended to steer a middle path between exclusion and integration 

that would be nondiscriminatory. In addition to serving in the Steward 's 

Branch, which contained 10 percent of all blacks in the corps, Negroes would 

serve in segregated units in every branch of the corps, and their strength would 

total some 2,800 men. This quota would not be like that established in the 

Army, which was pegged to the number of black soldiers during the war and 

which ultimately was based on national population ratios. The Marine Corps 

ratio of blacks co whites would be closer to 1 in 30 and would merely represent 

the estimated number of billets that might be filled by Negroes in selfsustaining segregated units. 

The directorate also established a cable of discribucion plan chat for the first 

time provided for black regular marines in aviation units and several ocher 

Hshaw and Donnelly, Blacks in the Marine Corps, pp. 47-49: lmcrv, James Westfall with Col Curtis W. 

LeGette (USMC, Ret.), 8 Feb 72. copy in CMH. 
NEW DIRECTIONS 173 

Marine Corps activities. Aviation units alone accounted for 25 percent of the 

marines in the postwar corps, General Thomas contended, and must absorb 

their proportionate share of black strength. Further, the Navy's policy of nondiscrimination demanded that all types of assignments be opened to black 

marines. Segregation "best suits the needs of the Marine Corps," General 

Thomas concluded. Ignoring the possibility of black officers and women 

marines, he thought that the opening of all specialties and types of duty to the 

enlisted ranks would find the Marine Corps "paralleling Navy policy." 51 

Clearly, the Division of Plans and Policies wanted the corps to adopt a formula 

roughly analogous to the Gillem Board's separate but equal system without that 

body's provisions for a fixed quota, black officers, or some integrated service. 

But even this concession to nondiscrimination was never approved, for the 

Plans and Policies Division ran afoul of a basic fact of segregation: the postwar 

strength of many elements of the Marine Corps was too small to support 

separate racial units. The Director of Aviation, for example, argued that because 

of the size and nature of his operation, segregated service was impossible. A 

substantial number of his enlisted men also did double duty by serving in air 

stations where Negroes could not be segregated, he explained. Only completely 

separate aviation units, police and maintenance, and construction units would 

be available for Negroes, a state of affairs ''which would be open to adverse 

criticism." He recommended instead that Negroes in aviation be used only as 

stewards. 55 He failed to explain how this solution would escape adverse 

criticism. 

General Thomas rejected these proposals, repeating that Secretary Forrestal's 

nondiscrimination policy demanded that a separate but equal system be extended throughout the Marine Corps. He also borrowed one of the Gillem 

Board's arguments: Negroes must be trained in the postwar military establishment in every occupation to serve as a cadre for future general mobilizations. 56 

Thomas did not mention the fact that although large branches such as Fleet 

Marine Force aviation could maintain separate but equal living facilities for its 

black marines, even they would have to provide partially integrated training and 

working conditions. And the smaller organizations in the corps would be forced 

to integrate fully if forced to accept black marines. In short, if the corps wanted 

segregation it must pay the price of continued discrimination against black 

marines in terms of numbers enlisted and occupations assigned. 

The choice was left to Commandant Vandegrift. One solutio~ to the 

"Negro question," General Thomas told him, was complete integration and 

the abolition of racial quotas, but Thomas did not press this solution. Instead, 

he reviewed for Vandegrift the racial policies of the other services, pointing out 

that these policies had more often been devised to "appease the Negro press 

HMcmo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 8 Apr 46, sub: Negro Personnel in the Post-War Marine 

Cor~s. This memo was not submitted forsignarure and wassupetseded by a memo of 13 May 46. 

5Memos, Dir, Aviation, for CMC, 26 Apr 46, sub: Negro Personnel in the Post-War Marine Corps, and 

31 May 46. sub: Enlistment of Negroes "For Duty in Aviation Units Only." 56Div of Plans and Policies (signed G. C. Thomas). Consideration of Non-Concurrence, 2 May 46. 

attached to Memo. Dir, Aviation, for CMC, 26 Apr 46. 
174 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

and other 'interested' agencies than to satisfy their own needs." Until the matter was settled on a ''higher level,'' Thomas concluded, the services were not required to go further than had been their custom, and until Vandegrift decided 

on segregation or integration, setting quotas for the different branches in the 

corps was inappropriate. Thomas himself recommended that segregated units 

be adopted and that a quota be devised only after each branch of the corps 

reported how many Negroes it could use in segregated units. 57 Vandegrift approved Thomas's recommendation for segregated black units, and the Marine 

Corps lost the chance, temporarily, to adopt a policy in line with either the 

Navy's limited and integrated system or the Army's separate but equal system. 

General Thomas spent the summer collecting and reviewing the proposals of 

the corps' various components for the employment of black marines. On the 

basis of this review General Vandegrift approved a postwar policy for the 

employment of Negroes in the Marine Corps on 26 September 1946. The policy 

called for the enlistment of 2,264 Negroes, 264 as stewards, the rest to serve in 

separate units, chiefly in ground security forces of the Fleet Marine Force in 

Guam and Saipan and in Marine Corps activities of the naval shore establishment. No Negroes except stewards would serve in Marine aviation, Marine forces 

afloat, or, with the exception of service depots, in the Marine logistic establishment.~8 

The policy was in effect by January 1947. In the end the Marine Corps' 

white-only tradition had proved strong enough to resist the progressive impulses 

that were pushing the other services toward some relaxation of their segregation 

policies. Committed to limiting Negroes to a token representation and employing black marines in rigidly self-contained units, the Marine Corps could not 

establish a quota for Negroes based on national racial proportions and could 

offer no promise of equal treatment and opportunity in work assignments and 

promotions. 

Thus all the services emerged from their deliberations with postwar policies 

that were markedly different in several respects but had in common a degree of 

segregation. The Army, declaring that military efficiency demanded ultimate 

integration, temporized, guaranteeing as a first step an intricate system of 

separate but equal treatment and opportunity for Negroes. The Marine Corps 

began with the idea that separate but equal service was not discriminatory, but 

when equal service proved unattainable, black marines were left with separatism 

alone. The Navy announced the most progressive policy of all, providing for integration of its general service. Yet it failed to break the heavy concentration of 

HMemo. Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 13 May 46. sub: Negro Personnel in the Post-War 

Marine Corps. 

) 8Idem for CMC, 2) Sep 46, sub: Post· War Negro Personnel Requirements. For examples of the proposals 

submined by the various components. see Memo, F. D. Beans, G-3. for G-1, 6 Aug 46, sub: Employment of 

Colored Personnel in the Fleet Marine Force (Ground) (less Service Ground) and in Training Activities: Memo, 

Lt Col Schmuck, G-3. for Col Stiles, 10 Jun 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel in Post-War Infantry 

Units of the Fleet Marine Force; Memo, QMC for CMC, 4 Sep 46, sub: Negro Personnel in the Post-War 

Marine Corps. 
NEW DIRECTIONS 175 

Negroes in the Steward's Branch, where no whites served. And unlike the 

segregated Army, the integrated Navy, its admission standards too high to encourage black enlistments, did not guarantee to take any black officers or 

specialists. 

None of these policies provided for the equal treatment and opportunity 

guaranteed to every black serviceman under the Constitution, although the 

racial practices of all the services stood far in advance of those of most institutions in the society from which they were derived. The very weaknesses and inadequacies inherent in these policies would in themselves become a major cause 

of the reforms that were less than a decade away. 
CHAPTER 7 

A Problem of Quotas 

The War Department encountered overwhelming problems when it tried to 

put the Gillem Board's recommendations into practice, and in the end only 

parts of the new policy for the use of black manpower were ever carried out. The 

policy foundered for a variety of reasons: some implicit in the nature of the 

policy itself, others the result of manpower exigencies, and still others because of 

prejudices lingering in the staff, the Army, and the nation at large. 

Even before the Army postwar racial policy was published in War Department Circular 124 on 27 April 1946 it met formidable opposition in the staff. 

Although Secretary Patterson had approved the new course of action, the Assistant Chief of Staff for Personnel , General Paul, sent a copy of what he called the 

''proposed'' policy to the Army Air Forces for further comment. 1 The response 

of the air commander, General Carl Spaatz, revealed that he too considered the 

policy still open for discussion. He suggested that the Army abandon the quota 

in favor of admitting men on the basis of intelligence and professional ability 

and forbid enlistment to anyone scoring below eighty in the entry tests. He 

wanted the composite organizations of black and white units recommended by 

the board held to a minimum, and none smaller than an air group-a 

regimental-size unit. Black combat units should have only black service units in 

supporc. In fact, Spaatz believed that most black units should be service units, 

and he wanted to see Negroes employed in overhead assignments only where 

and when their specialties were needed. He did not want jobs created especially 

for them. 2 

These were not the only portents of difficulty for the new policy. Before its 

publication General Paul had announced that he would not establish a staff 

group on racial affairs as called for by the Gillem Board. Citing manpower shortages and the small volume of work he envisaged, Paul planned instead to divide 

such duties between his Welfare Branch and Military Personnel Services Group. 3 

The concept of a central authority for the direction of racial policy was further 

weakened in April when Paul invited the Assistant Chief of Staff for Organization and Training, General Edwards, one of whose primary tasks was to decide 

the size and number of military units, to share responsibility for carrying out the 

recommendations of the Gillem Board." 

1DF. ACofS, G-1, to CG. AAF. 15 Mar 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army, 

WDGAP 291.2. 2

Memo, CG, AAF, for ACofS, G-1, 3 Apr 46, sub: Utilization of Manpower in the Postwar Army, 

WDGAP 291.2. 

}OF, ACofS, G- 1, to ASW, 26 Mar 46. sub: Implementation of WD Cir 124, WDGAP 291.2. 41dcm tO ACofS, G-3. 29 Apr46, sub: lmplcmcrytation ofWD Cir 124, WDGAP 291.2. 
A PROBLEM OF QUOTAS 177 

Assistant Secretary Petersen was'perturbed at the mounting evidence of opposition. Specifically, he believed Spaatz' s comments indicated a lack of accord 

with Army policy, and he wanted the Army Air Forces told that "these basic 

matters are no longer open for discussion." He also wanted to establish a troop 

basis that would lead, without the imposition of arbitrary percentages, to the 

assignment of a "fair proportion" _of black troops to all major commands and 

their use in all kinds of duties in all the arms and services. Petersen considered 

the composite unit one of the most important features of the new policy, and he 

wanted "at least a few" such units organized soon. He mentioned the assignment of a black parachute battalion to the 82d Airborne Division as a good 

place to begin. 

Petersen had other concerns. He was distressed at the dearth of black 

specialists in overhead detachments, and he wondered why War Department 

Circular 105, which provided for the assignment of men to critically needed 

specialties, explicitly excluded Negroes.~ He wanted the circular revised. Above 

all, Petersen feared the new policy might falter from a lack of aggressive leadership. He estimated that at first it would require at least the full attention of 

several officers under the leadership of an "aggressive officer who knows the 

Army and has its confidence and will take an active interest in vigorous enforcement of the program. " 6 By implication Petersen was asking General Paul to 

take the lead . 

Within a week of Petersen's comments on leadership, Paul bad revised Circular 105, making its provisions applicable to all enlisted men, regardless of race 

or physical profile. 7 A few days later, he was assuring Petersen that General 

Spaatz 's comments were "inconsistent with the approved recommendations" 

and were being disregarded. 8 Paul also repeated the principal points of the new 

policy for the major commanders, especially those dealing with composite units 

and overhead assignments for black specialists. He stressed that, whenever possible, Negroes should be assigned to places where local community attitudes were 

most favorable and no undue burden would be imposed on local civilian 

facilities. 9 

General Paul believed the principal impediment to practical application of 

the new policy was not so much the opposition of field commanders as the fact 

that many black units continued to perform poorly. He agreed with Marcus Ray, 

Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War, who had predicted as early as January 

1946 that the success of the Gillem Board's recommendations would depend on 

how many Negroes of higher than average ability the armed forces could attract 

and retain. Ray reasoned that among the Negroes enlisting in the Regular 

~WDCir 105, 10 Apr46. 

6Memo, ASW for ACofS, G-1, 27 Apr46, ASW 291.2. 7G-l Summary Sheet for CofS, 3 May 46, sub: Changes ro WD Cir 105, 1946, WDGAP 291.2. Revision 

appeared as WD Circular 142, 17 May 46. 

Bof, ACofS, G-1, to ASW, 13 May 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in Postwar Army, WDGAP 

291.2. 

9Ltr, TAG to CG 's, AGF, AAF, and ASF, 6 May 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in Postwar 

Army. AGAM·PM 291.2 (30 Apr 46); idem to CG's, 10 Jun 46, same sub. same file (4 jun 46). 
178 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Army- 14 percent of the 1945 

total- were large numbers of noncommissioned officers in the three highest 

grades whose abilities were limited. 

They were able to maintain their 

ratings, usually in service units., because 

their duties required knowledge of 

neither administration nor weapons. 

Truckmasters, foremen , riggers, and 

the like, they rushed to reenlist in order 

to freeze themselves in grade. Since 

many of these men were in the two 

lowest test categories, they could not 

supply the leaders needed ·for black 

units. Ray wanted to replace these men 

with better educated enlistees who 

could be used on the broadened professional base recommended by the 

Gillem Board. To that end he wanted 

the Army to test all enlisted men, 

discharge those below minimum stanGENERAL PAUL 

dards, and launch a recruiting campaign to attract better qualified men, both 

black and white. 1° For his part, Paul also deplored the enlistment of men who 

were, in his words, "mentally incapable of development into the specialists, 

technicians, and instructors that we must have in the post-war Regular Army.' '

11 

Here, even before the new racial policy was published, the Army staff ran 

head on into the realities of postwar manpower needs. In a rapid demobilization, the Army was critically short of troops, particularly for overseas replacements, and it could maintain troop strength only by accepting all the men it 

could get. Until Paul had more definite information on the future operations of 

Selective Service and the rate of voluntary Regular Army enlistments, he would 

have to postpone action to curtail the admission of low-scoring men. So pressing 

were the Army's needs that Paul could do nothing to guarantee that black 

strength would not greatly exceed the 10 percent figure suggested by the Gillem 

Board. He anticipated that by 1 July 1946 the regular and active reserve components of the Army would together be approximately 15 percent black, a 

percentage impossible to avoid if the Army was to retain 1.8 million men. Since 

all planning had been based on a 10 percent black strength, plans would have to 

be revised to make use of the excess. In February 1946 the Chief of Scaff approved General Paul's program: Negroes would continue to be drafted at the 10 

percent ratio; at the same time their enlistment in the Regular Army would continue without restriction on numbers. Negroes would be limited to 15 percent 

10Mcmo, Marcus H. Ray for ASW, 22 Jan 46, ASW 291.2. 11Mcmo, ACofS, G-1, for CofS, 25 Jan 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army, 

WDGAP 291.2. 
A PROBLEM OF QUOTAS 179 

of the overseas commands, and the continental commands would absorb all the 

rest. 

12 

Paul's program for absorbing Negroes faced rough going, for the already 

complex manpower situation was further complicated by limitations on the use 

of Negroes in certain overseas theaters and the demands of the War Department's major commands. The Army was prohibited by an agreement with the 

State Department from sending Negroes to the Panama Canal Zone; it also 

respected an unwritten agreement that barred black servicemen from Iceland, 

the Azores, and China. 13 Since the War Department was unable to use Negroes 

everywhere, the areas where they could be used had to take more. The increase 

in black troops provoked considerable discussion in the large Pacific and European commands because it entailed separate housing, transportation, and care 

for dependents-all the usual expensive trappings of segregation. Theater commanders also faced additional problems in public relations and management. 

As one War Department staff officer claimed, black units required more than 

normal administration, stricter policing, and closer supervision. This in turn 

demanded additional noncommissioned officers, and ''more Negro bodies must 

be maintained to produce equivalent results. '' 14 

Both commands protested the War Department decision. Representatives 

from the European theater arrived in Washington in mid-February 1946 to propose a black strength of 8. 21 rather than the prescribed 1) percent. Seeking to 

determine where black soldiers could be used ''with the least harmful effect on 

theater operations,'' they discovered in conferences with representatives of the 

War Department staff only the places Negroes were not to be used: in infantry 

units, in the constabulary, which acted as a border patrol and occupation police, 

in highly technical services, or as supervisors of white civilian laborers. I) 

The commander of Army Forces, Pacific, was even more insistent on a revision, asking how he could absorb so many Negroes when his command was 

already scheduled to receive )0,000 Philippine Scouts and 29, )00 Negroes in 

the second half of 1947. These two groups, which the command considered far 

less adaptable than white troops to occupational duties, would together make 

up about 40 percent of the command's total strength. Although Philippine 

Scouts in the theater never exceeded 31,000, the command's protest achieved 

some success. The War Department agreed to reduce black troops in the Pacific 

to 14 percent by 1 January 1947 and 13 percent by 1 July 1947. 16 

12DF, ACofS. G-1, 23 Jan 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, WDGAP 291 .2 (23 Jan 46); Ltr, TAG 

to CG's, Major Forces, and Overseas Cmdrs, 4 Feb 46. same sub, AG 291.2 (3 1 Jan 46) OB·S·A·M. 

13G-1 Memo for Red , Col Coyne, Operations Gp, 19 Feb 47, WDGAP 291.2; prohibitions for certain 

areas arc discussed in detail in Chapter 15. 

14Memo, Actg Chief, Pac Theater Sec, OPD. for Maj Geo H. A. Craig, Dcp ACofS. OPD, 12 Feb 46, sub: 

Utilization of Negro Manpower, WDGOT 291.2. 

))Memo, Chief, Eur Sec, OPD. for Maj Gen Howard A. Craig, Dep ACofS, OPD, 15 Feb 46, sub: Utiliza. 

tion of Negro Personnel, WDGOT 291.2. 

16Mcmo for Red, Lt Col French, Theater Group, OPD, 7 May 46, sub: Negro Enlisted Strength, Pacific 

Theater, 1947, WDGOT 291.2. For a discussion of the Philippine Scouts in the Pacific theater, see Robert 

Ross Smith, "The Status of Philippine Military Forces During World War II,'' CMH files. 
180 INTEGRATION OFTHE ARMED fORCES, 1940-1965 

No sooner had the demands of the overseas theaters been dealt with than the 

enlarged black quotas came under attack from the commanders of major forces. 

Instead of planning to absorb more Negroes, the Army Air Forces wanted to 

djvesc itself of some black units on the premise chat unskilled troops were a 

liability in a highly technical service. General Spaacz reported that some 60 percent of all his black troops stationed in the United States in January 1946 were 

performing the duties of unskilled laborers and chat very few could be trained 

for skilled tasks. He predicted that the Army Air Forces would soon have an even 

higher percentage of low-scoring Negroes because 1) percent of all men 

enlisting in his Regular Army units- expected co reach a coral of 45 ,000 men by 

1 July 1946- were black. To forestall this increase in "undesirable and 

uneconomical " troops, he wanted to stop inducting Negroes into the Army Air 

Forces and suspend all black enlistments in the Regular Army. 17 

The Army Air Forces elaborated on these arguments in the following 

months, refining both its estimates and demands. Specifically, its manpower officials estimated that to reach the 1) percent black strength ordered by I July 

1946 the Air Forces would have to take )0, 500 Negroes into units that could efficiently use only 22,000 men. This embarrassment of more than 28,000 

unusable men, the Army Air Forces claimed, would require eliminating tactical 

units and creating additional quartermaster car companies, mess platoons, and 

other service organizations. 18 The Air staff wanted ro eliminate the unwanted 

28,000 black airmen by raising co eighty the minimum classification test score 

for Regular Army enlistment in che Army Air Forces. In the end it recreated 

from chis proposal, and on 25 February requested permission to use the 28,000 

Negroes in service units, but over and above its 400,000-man troop basis. It promised to absorb all these men into the troop basis by 30 June 1946. 1

'.1 

The Army staff rejected this plan on the grounds that any excess allowed 

above the current Air Forces troop basis would have to be balanced by a corresponding and unacceptable deficit in the Army Ground Forces and Army 

Service Forces. 20 The Army Air Forces countered with a proposal to discharge all 

black enlistees in excess of Air Forces requirements in the European theater who 

would accept discharge. It had in mind a group of 8, 795 Negroes recently 

enlisted for a three-year period, who, in accordance with a lure designed co 

stimulate such enlistments, had chosen assignment in the Air Forces and a station in Europe. With a surplus of black troops, the Air Forces found itself increasingly unable to fulfill the "overseas theater of choice" enlistment contract. 

Since some men would undoubtedly refuse to serve anywhere but Europe, the 

17Memo. CG, AAF, for ACofS , G- 1, 2~ Jan 46. sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar 

Arm~, WDGAP 291.2. 1 Memo, Brig Gen William Mc1heny. Off, Commitments Div, ACofS Air Staff-3, for ACofS Air Staff-3. 

18Fcb46, WDGOT29 1.2. 19DF, DCofAS (Maj Gen C. C. Chauncey) to G-3 25 Feb 46. sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the 

Posrwar Army, WDGOT 29 1.2. 

20Mcmo, Actg ACofS, G-3. for CG. AAF. 14 Mar 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar 

Army. WDGOT 291.2 . 
A PROBLEM OF QUOTAS 181 

Air staff reasoned, why not offer a discharge to all men who preferred st<;paration 

over service elsewhere? 

Again the Army staff turned down a request for a reduction in black troops. 

This time the Air Forces bowed to the inevitable-15 percent of its enlisted 

strength black-but grudgingly, for a quota of 50,419 Negroes, General Spaatz 

charged, "seriously jeopardizes the ability of the AAF to perform its assigned 

mission.' '

21 

The Army Service Forces also objected. When queried,

22 the chiefs of its 

technical and administrative services all agreed they could use only small percentages of black troops, and only those men in the higher categories of the 

classification test. From the replies of the chiefs it was plain that none of the 

technical services planned to use Negroes in as much as 10 percent of spaces, and 

several wanted to exclude black units altogether. Furthermore, the test 

qualifications they wanted set for many jobs were consistently higher than those 

achieved by the men then performing the tasks. The staff of the Army Service 

Forces went so far as to advocate that no more than 3. 29 percent of the overhead 

and miscellaneous positions in the Army Service Forces be entrusted to black 

troops. 23 

These answers failed to impress the War Department's Director of Personnel 

and Administration and the Director of Organization and TrainingY Both 

agreed that the technical and administrative services had failed to appreciate the 

problems and responsibilities outlined in War Department Circular 124; the 

assumption that black troops would not be used in certain types of duty in the 

future because they had not been so used in the past was unwarranted, General 

Paul added. Limited or token employment of Negroes, he declared, was no 

longer acceptable. ~ 

Yet somehow the reality of black enlistments and inductions in 1946 never 

quite matched the Army's dire predictions. According to plans for 1 April1946, 

Negroes in the continental United States would comprise 15.2 percent of the 

Army Service Forces, 15.4 percent of the Army Ground Forces, and 17 percent 

of the Army Air Forces. Actually, Negroes in continental commands on 30 April 

1946 made up 14 .86 percent of the Army Service Forces, 5.62 percent of the 

Army Ground Forces, and 11.86 percent of the Army Air Forces. The 116,752 

black soldiers amounted to 12.35 percent of all troops based in the United 

21 Mcmo, ACofS, G-3. for CG, AAF, 21 Mar 46, sub: Authorized Military Personnel as of 31 December 

1946 and 30 June 1947, WDGOT 320.2 (21 Mar46); OF, CG , AAF, to ACofS, G-3. 26 Mar46. same sub, 

WPGOT 291.21 (1 2 Feb 46). 22Memo, Actg Dir, Plans and Policy, ASF. for PMG et al., 23 May 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower 

in the Postwar Army. AG 291.2 (23 May 46). 23Thc replies of the individual technical and administrative service chiefs. along with the response of the 

ASF Personnel Director. arc inclosed in Memo, Chief. Plans and Policy Off. Dir of SS&P, for Dir, O&T, 21 

Jun 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army, WDGSP 291.2 (Negro). 24Under WD Circular 134, 14 May 46, the War Department General Staff was reorganized, and many of 

its offices, including G- 1 and G-3. were redesignated as of II june 1946. For an extended discussion of these 

changes, sec James E. Hewes, Jr .. From Root to MoNamara: Army Organization and Administration, 

1900- 1963 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1975). Chaptcr!V . 

~DF, 0/0T to DIP A, 13 Jul 46. sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army. WDGOT 

291.21 (21 Jun 46); OF. 0/PA to 0/0T. 30 Jul46. same sub, WDGAP 291.2 (15 Jul46). 
182 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

States; overseas, the 67,372 Negroes constituted 7. 7 3 percent of American force. 

Altogether, the 184,124 Negroes in the Army amounted ta,10.14 percent of the 

whole. 26 

The Quota in Practice 

While the solution to the problem of too many black enlistees and too many 

low-scoring men was obvious, it was also replete with difficulty. The difficulty 

came from the complex way the Army obtained its manpower. It accepted 

volunteers for enlistment in the Regular Army and qualified veterans for the 

Organized Reserves; until November 1946 it also drafted men through the 

Selective Service and accepted volunteers for the draft. 27 At the same time, 

under certain conditions it accepted enlistment in the Regular Army of drafted 

men who had completed their tours. To curtail enlistment of Negroes and 

discharge low-scoring professionals, the Army would be obliged co manipulate 

the complex regulations governing the various forms of enlistment and sidestep 

the egalitarian provisions of the Selective Service System at a time when the service was trying to attract recruits and avoid charges of racial discrimination. 

Altogether it was quite a large order, and during the next two years the Army 

fought the battle of numbers on many fronts. 

It first took on the draft. Although to stop inducting Negroes when the administration was crying to persuade Congress to extend the draft act was 

politically unwise, the Army saw no way to restrict the number of Negroes or 

eliminate substandard men so long as Selective Service insisted on 10 percent 

black calls and a minimum classification test score of seventy. In April 1946 the 

Army issued a call for 126,000 men, boldly specifying that no Negroes would be 

accepted. Out of the battle of memos with Selective Service that followed, a 

compromise emerged: a black call of 4 percent of the total in April, a return to 

the usual 10 percent call for Negroes in May, and another 4 percent call in 

June. 28 No draft calls were issued in July and August, but in September the 

Army staff tried again, canceling the call for Negroes and rejecting black 

volunteers for induction. 

29 Again it encountered resistance from the Selective 

Service and the black community, and when the Secretary of War was sued for 

violation of the Selective Service Act the Army issued a 3 percent call for 

Negroes in October, the last call made under the 1940 draft law. In all, 16,888 

Negroes were drafted into the Army in 1946, some 10.5 percent of the cotaP0 

26Strength of the Army (STM-30). I May 46; see also Memo. ACofS, G-1, for Chief, MPD. ASF. 3 Jun 

46, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, WDGPA 291.2. (12 Jul46). 

27Volumeers for the draft were men classsified I·A by Selective Service who were allowed to sign up for immediate duty often in the service of their choice. The volunteer for the draft was only obliged to serve for the 

shoner period imposed on the draftee rarher than the 36-momh enlistment for the Regular Army. 28Report of the Director. Office of Selective Service Review, 31 March 1947, Table 56, copy in CMH. 2

9Memo, Chief, Manpower Control Gp, D/ PA, for TAG, 6 Sep 46, Utilization of Negro Manpower in 

Postwar Army. WDGPA 291.2; D/PA Memo for Red, I Sep 46, WDGPA 291.2 (I Sep 46-31 Dec 46). 3°Figures vary for the number actually drafted: those given above are from Selective Service Monograph 

No. 10, Special Groups, Appendix, p . 201. See also "Review of the Month," A Monthly Summary of Events 

andTremls in Race Relations 4 (October 1946):67 . 
A PROBLEM OF QUOTAS 183 

The Army had more success restricting black enlistments. In April 1946, at 

the same time it adopted the Gillem Board recommendations, the Army began 

to deny enlistment or reenlistment in the Regular Army to anyone scoring below 

seventy on the Army General Classification Test. The only exceptions were men 

who had been decorated for valor and men with previous service who had scored 

sixty-five and were recommended for reenlistment by their commanders. 31 The 

Army also stopped enlisting men with active venereal disease, not because the 

Medical Department was unable to cure them but because by and large their 

educational levels were low and, according to the classification tests, they had 

little aptitude for learning. The Army stopped recruiting men for special stations, hoping a denial of the European theater and other attractive assignments 

would lower the number of unwanted recruits. 

Using the new enlistment standards as a base, the Army quickly revised its 

estimated black stength downward. On 16 April 1946 the Secretary of War 

rescinded the order requiring major commands to retain a black strength of 15 

percent. 32 The acting G-3 had already informed the commanding general of 

the Army Air Forces of the predicted drop in the number of black troops-from 

13.3 percent in June 1946 to 10 percent a year later-and agreed the Army Air 

Forces could reduce its planned intake accordingly. 33 Estimating the European 

theater's capacity to absorb black troops at 21,845 men, approximately 10 percent of the command total, the Army staff agreed to readjust its planned allotment of Negroes to that command downward by some 1,500 spaces. 34 

These changes proved ill-advised, for the effort to curb the number of 

Negroes in the Regular Army was largely unsuccessful. The staff had overlooked 

the ineffectiveness of the Army's testing measures and the zeal of its recruiters 

who, pressed to fill their quotas, accepted enlistees without concern for the new 

standards. By mid-June the effect was readily apparent. The European theater, 

for example, reported some 19,000 Negroes in excess of billets in black units 

and some 2,000 men above the theater's current allotment of black troops. 

Assignment of Negroes to Europe had been stopped, but the number of black 

regulars waiting for overseas assignment stood at 5, 000, a figure expected to 

double by the end of the summer. Some of this excess could be absorbed in 

eight newly created black units, but that still left black units worldwide 18 to 40 

percent overstrength. 35 

Notice that Negroes totaled 16 percent of the Regular Army on 1 July 1946 

with the personnel staff's projections running to a 24 percent level for the next 

31WDCir110,17Apr46. 32Ltr, TAG to CG, AAF, et al., 16 Apr 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, AGAO·S·A·M 291.2 (12 

Apr 46). 

33Memo, Actg ACofS, G-3. for CG, AAF, 12 Apr 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, WDGOT 

291.21 (12 Feb46). 

34Memo, ACofS, OPD, for CofS, 13 May 46, sub: Augmentation of the ETO Ceiling Strengths as of 1 Jul 

46 (le.ss AAF), WDCSA 320.2 (1946). 

35G-! Memo for Red (signed Col E. L. Heyduck, Enl Div), 18 Jun 46, WDGAP 291.2; see also EUCOM 

Hist Div (prepared by Margaret L. Geis), "Negro Personnel in the European Command, I January 1946-30 

June 1950," Occupation Forces in Europe Series (Historical Division, European Command, 1952) (hereafter 

Geis Monograph), pp. !4-18, copy in CMH. 
184 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

year precipitated action in the War 

Department. On 1 S July Marcus Ray 

and Dean Rusk, Special Assistant to the 

Assistant Secretary of War, met with 

representatives of the Army staff to 

discuss black Strength. Basing his decision on the consensus of that meeting, 

the Secretary of War on 17 July 

suspended enlistment of Negroes in the 

Regular Army. He excepted two 

categories of men from this ruling. Men 

who qualified and had actually served 

for six months in any of forty-eight 

unu sua l military occupational 

specialties in which there were chronic 

manpower shortages would be enlisted 

without promise of specific assignment 

to branch or station. At the same time, 

because of manpower shortages, the 

Army would continue to accept 

Negroes, already regulars, who wanted 

to reenlist. 36 

MARCUS RAY 

While the new enlistment policy would help restore the Gillem Board's 

quantitative equilibrium to the Army, the secretary's exception allowing 

reenlistment of regulars would only intensify the qualitative imbalance between 

black and white soldiers. The nation's biracial educational system had produced 

an average black soldier who scored well below the average white soldier on all 

the Army's educational and training tests. The segregation policy had only complicated the problem by denying the talented Negro the full range of Army occupations and hence an equal chance for advancement. With the suspension of 

first-time enlistments, the qualitative imbalance was sure to grow, for now the 

highly qualified civilian would be passed over while the less qualified soldier was 

permitted to reenlist. 

This imbalance was of particular concern to Marcus Ray who was present 

when the suspension of black enlistments had been decided upon. Ray had suggested that instead of barring all new enlistees the Army should discharge all 

Class V soldiers, whites and blacks alike, for the convenience of the government 

and recruit in their place an equal number of Class I and II candidates. Manpower officials had objected, arguing there was no point in enlisting more 

Negroes in Class I and II until the 10 percent ratio was again reached. Such a 

reduction, with current attrition, would take two years. At the same time, the 

Army manpower shortages made it impractical to discharge 92,000 soldiers, half 

of whom were white, in Class V. The organization and training representatives, 

3

6Lrr, TAG to CG, Each Army, ct al., 17 Jul 46. sub: Enlistmcm of Negroes, AGSE-P342.06 (9 Jul46); 

D/PA Summary Sheet to CofS, 9 Jul 46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes in Regular Army. WDGPA 291.2. 
A PROBLEM OF QUOTAS 185 

on the other hand, agreed with Ray that it was in the best interest of the Army 

to discharge these men, pointing out that a recent increase in pay for enlisted 

men together with the continuing need for recruits with greater aptitude for 

learning would make the policy palatable to the Congress and the public. 37 

The conferees deferred decision on the matter, but during the following 

months the War Department set out to achieve a qualitative balance between its 

black and white recruits. On 10 August 1946 the Chief of Staff directed commanders, under the authority of Army Regulation 615-369 which defined ineptness for military service, to eliminate after six months men "incapable of serving in the Army in a desirable manner after reasonable attempts have been 

made to utilize their capabilities." He went on to explain that this category included those not mentally qualified, generally defined as men scoring below 

seventy, and those repeatedly guilty of minor offenses. 

38 The Army reissued the 

order in 1947, further defining the criteria for discharge to include those who 

needed continued and special instruction or supervision or who exhibited 

habitual drunkenness, ineptness, or inability to conform to group living. A further modification in 1949 would deny reenlistment to married men who had 

failed during their first enlistment to make corporal or single men who did not 

make private first class. 3

9 

The measures were aimed at eliminating the least qualified men of both 

races, and in October 1946 General Paul decided the Army could now begin 

taking black recruits with the qualifications and background that allowed them 

"to become useful members of the Army. " 40 To that end The Adjutant 

General announced on 2 October that as a further exception to the prohibition 

against black enlistments in the Regular Army all former officers and noncommissioned officers who volunteered would be accepted without limitation.41 On 

31 October he announced the establishment of a selective procurement program. With the exception of men who had been in certain specialized occupations for six months, all Negroes enlisting in the Regular Army had to score one 

hundred on the Army General Classification Test; the minimum score for white 

enlistees remained seventy Y At the same time, The Adjutant General rescinded for Negroes the choice-of-assignment provision of Regular Army enlistment contracts. 

These measures helped lower the percentage of Negroes in the Army and 

reduced to some extent the diffetential in test scores between white and black 

soldiers. The percentage of Negroes dropped by 30 June 1947 to 7.91 percent of 

37Df0T Memo for Red. 15 Jul46; DF, DfOT to DIP A, 15 Jul46, sub: Basic Training of Negro Personnel; 

both in WDGOT 291.2. 

}8WD Cir 241, 10 Aug 46. 

39wD Cir 93, 9 Apr 47; DIP A Summary Sheet. l Scp 49, sub: Method of Reducing Negro Reenlistment 

Rate, WDGPA 291.2 (6 Apr49). 40P&A Memo for Red. 30 Sep 46. attached to copy of ltr, TAG to CG. Each Army. et al .. 2 Oct 46. sub: 

Enlistment of Negroes. AGSE-P342.06. WDGAP 291.2. 

41Ltr, TAG ro CG, Each Army. et al., 2 Oct 46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes, AGSE-P342.06 (30 Sep 46). 

42 Ibid., 31 Oct 46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes, AGSE-P342.06 (23 Ocr 46); sec also WD Cir 103, 1947. 

An exception to the AGCT 70 minimum for whites was made in the case of enlistment into the AAF which re· 

mained ar 100 for both races. 
186 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES. 1940-1965 

the Army, 8. 99 percent of its enlisted strength and 9.4 percent of its Regular 

Army strength. Black enlisted strength of all the overseas commands stood at 

8. 7) percent, down from the 10.77 percent of the previous December. Percentages in the individual theaters reflected this trend; the European theater, for example, dropped from 10.33 percent black to 9.96, the Mediterranean theater 

from 10.0) to 8.03, and Alaska from 26.6 to 14 .)4.43 

Precise figures on the number of poorly qualified troops eliminated are 

unknown, but the European command expected to dischar~e some 12,000 lowscoring and unsuitable men, many of them black, in 1947. 4 Several commands 

reported that the new regulations materially improved the quality of black units 

by opening vacancies to better qualified men. General Paul could argue with 

considerable justification that in regulating the quality of its recruits the Army 

was following the spirit if not the letter of the Gillem Board Report. If the Army 

could set high enough standards it would get good men, and to this end the 

General Staff's Personnel and Administration Division asked for the support of 

commanders.45 

Although these measures were helpful to the Army, they were frankly 

discriminatory, and they immediately raised a storm of protest. During the summer of 1946, for example, many black soldiers and airmen complained about 

the Army's rejection of black enlistments for the European theater. The 

NAACP, which received some of the soldiers' complaints, suggested that the 

War Department honor its pled~es or immediately release all Negroes who were 

refused their choice of location. 6 The Army did just that, offering to discharge 

honorably those soldiers who, denied their theater of choice, rejected any 

substitute offered. 47 

Later in 1946 a young Negro sued the Secretary of War and a Pittsburgh 

recruiting officer for refusing to enlist him. To make standards for black applicants substantially higher than those for whites, he alleged, violated the 

Preamble and Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, while the inducements 

offered for enlistment, for example the GI Bill of Rights, constituted a valuable 

property right denied him because of race. The suit asked that all further 

enlistments in the Army be stopped until Negroes were accepted on equal terms 

with whites and all special enlistment requirements for Negroes were 

abolished. 48 Commenting on the case, the chief of the War Department's 

Public Relations Division, Maj. Gen. Floyd L. Parks, defended the Gillem 

43All figures arc from STM-30, Strength of the Army. Figures for the Pacific theater were omjued because 

of the complex reorganization of Army troops in that area in early 1947. On 30 June 1947 the Army element 

in the Far East Command, the major Army organization in the Pacific, had 18,644 black enlisted troops, 8.56 

percent of the command's total. 

44Memo, Brig Gcn ). J. O'Hare, Dep Dir, P&A, for SA, 9 Mar 48. sub: Implementation of WD Cir 124, 

CSGPA 291.2. 4)G-I Memo for Red, 30 Sep 46, attached to Ltr, TAG to CG, Each Army. ct al., 2 Oct 46, sub: Enlist· 

ment of Negroes, AGSE-P342.06 (30 Sep 46). 46Ltr, Walter White tO SW, 18 Jun 46; Telg, White tO SW. 24 Jun 46; both in SW 291.2 (Negro Troops). 47DF, OT!G to DIP A, 23 Jul46. sub: Assignment of Negro Enlistees Who Have Selected ETO as Choice 

of Initial Assignment, WDSIG 220.3-Negro Enlistees. 

48Pimburgh Post Gazelle, December 19, 1946. 
A PROBLEM OF QUOTAS 187 

Board's 10 percent quota, but agreed that' 'we are on weak ground [in] having a 

different standard for admission between white and colored. . . . I think the 

thing to do is to put a ceiling over the number you take in, and then take the 

best ones. " 49 

The suit brought to a climax the feeling of indignation against Army policy 

that had been growing among some civil rights activists. One organization 

called on the Secretary of War to abandon the Gillem Board policy "and unequivocably and equitably integrate Negroes ... without any discrimination, 

segregatioq or quotas in any form, concept or manner. "~0 Senator Robert M. 

LaFollette, Jr., of Wisconsin called the decision to suspend black enlistments 

race discrimination.H Walter P. Reuther, president of the United Automobile 

Workers and the codirector of his union's Fair Practices Department, branded 

the establishment of a quota "undemocratic and in violation of principles for 

which they [Negroes] fought in the war" and demanded tha~ black enlistment 

be reinstated and the quota abolished. 2 Invoking American tradition and the 

United Nations Charter, John Haynes Holmes, chairman of the board of directors of the American Civil Liberties Union, called for the abolition of enlistment 

quotas. The national commander of the United Negro and Allied Veterans of 

America announced that his organization unreservedly condemned the quota 

because it deliberately deprived citizens of their constitutional right to serve 

their country. H 

The replies of the Secretary of War to all these protests were very much alike. 

The Army's enlistment practices, he wrote, were based on a belief that black 

strength in the Army ought to bear a direct relationship to the percentage of 

Negroes in the population. As for the basic premise of what seemed to him a 

perfectly logical course of action, Patterson concluded that "acceptance of the 

Negro-white ratio existing in the civilian population as a basis for the Army's 

distribution of units and personnel is not considered discriminatory. " 54 The 

secretary's responses were interesting, for they demonstrated a significant 

change in the Army's attitude toward the quota. There is evidence that the 

quota was devised by the Gillem Board as a temporary expedient to guarantee 

the substantial participation of Negroes. It was certainly so viewed by civil rights 

advocates. As late as December 1946 Assistant Secretary Petersen was still echoing this view when he explained that the quota was a temporary ceiling and the 

Army had no right to use it as a permanent bar to black enlistment. 55 

Nevertheless it is also clear that the traditionalists considered the quota a 

means of permanently limiting black soldiers to a percentage equivalent to 

49Memo, D/PRD for SW, ASW, and D/P&A, 19 Dec 46, ASW 29!.2. 

5°Ltr, American Veterans Committee, Manhattan Chapter, to SW, 17 Jul46, SW 291.2 (NT). 

51Ltr, LaFollette to SW, 25 Jul46, SW 291.2. 

52Ltr, Reuther and William Oliverto SW, 23 Jul46, SW 291.2. 

BLu, J. H. Holmes to SW, 26 Jul46; Ltr, A.rchur D. Gatz, Nat'! Cmdr, United Negro and Allied Veterans 

of America, to SW, 20 Jul46; both in SW 291 .2. 

54See Ltrs, SW to Wesley P. Brown, Adjutant, Jesse Clipper American Legion Post No. 430, Buffa lo, 

N.Y., 30 Aug 46, and to Jesse 0 . Dedmon, Jr. , Secy, Veterans Affairs Bureau, NAACP, 18 Nov 46; both in 

SW 291.2. The quote is from the latter document. 55Memo, Maj Gen Parks for SW, et al., 19 Dec 46 (with attached note signed "HP"), SW 291.2. 
188 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Negroes in the population. Assistant Secretary McCloy belonged to neither 

group. More than a year before in reviewing the Gillem Board's work he had 

declared: "I do not see any place for a quota in a policy that looks to utilization 

of Negroes on the basis of ability.'' 

After a year of dealing with black overstrengrhs and juggling enlistment 

standards, General Paul and his staff thought otherwise. They believed that a 

ceiling must be imposed on the Army's black strength if a rapid and uncontrolled increase in the number of black troops was to be avoided. And it had to 

be avoided, they believed, lest it create a disproportionately large pool of black 

career soldiers with low aptitudes that would weaken the Army. Using the quota 

to limit the number of black troops, they maintained, was not necessarily 

discriminatory. It could be defended as a logical reading of the Gillem Board's 

declaration that "the proportion of Negro to white manpower as exists in the 

civil population" should be' accepted in the peacetime Army to insure an 

orderly and uniform mobilization in a national emergency. With the Gillem 

policy to support it, the Army staff could impose a strict quota on the number of 

black soldiers and justify different enlistment standards for blacks and whites, a 

course that was in fact the only alternative to the curtailment of white enlistment under the manpower restrictions being imposed upon the postwar 

Army.~6 

Paul's reasoning was eventually endorsed by the new Chief of Staff, General 

Omar N. Bradley, Secretary Patterson, and his successor, Secretary of the Army 

Kenneth C. RoyalP7 Beginning in mid-1947 the enlistment of Negroes was 

carefully geared to their percentage of the total strength of the Army, not to a 

fixed quota or percentage of those enlisting. This limitation on black enlistment 

was made more permanent in 1949 when it was included in the Army's 

mobilization plan, the basic manpower planning documenc.~8 

The adjustment of enlistment quotas to increase or curtail black strength 

quickly became rou tine in the Army. When the number of Negroes dropped 

below 10 percent of the Army's total strength in June 1947, The Adjutant 

General set a quota for the enlistment of black soldiers. 9 When this quota was 

met in late August, the enlistment of Negroes with no special training was 

reduced to 500 men per month.60 As part of a Personnel and Administration 

Division program to increase the number and kinds of black units, the quota 

was temporarily increased to 3,000 men per month for four months beginning 

DF. DI P& A to 0/0&T. 28 Apr 47. sub: Negro Enlisted Strength. WDGPA 291.2 (12 Jul46); idem for 

SA. 6 Aug 48. sub: Removing Resrrictions on Negro Enlistments. CSGPA 291.2 . 

HMc:mo, ONB (Gen Bradley) for Gcn Paul, 9 Aug 48, CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (6 Aug 48). Bradley succeeded Eisenhower as Chief of Staff on 7 February 1948, and Royall succeeded Patterson on 19 July 1947. 

Royall assumed the: title Secretary of the Army on 17 September 1947 under the terms of the National Security 

Act of 1947. 

AMP-l Personnel Annex, I Jun 49. P&D 370.0 (2) Apr 49); see also Memo, Chief. Planning Office, 

P&A, for Brig Gcn John E. Dahlquist (Ocp P&A), 4 Feb 49, sub: Utilization of Negroes in Mobilization, 

DIP A 291.2 (4 Feb 49). 

Ltr, TAG to CG, Each Army, et al .. 9 Jul47 , sub: Enlistment of Negroes AGSE-?291.2 (27 Jun 47). 6<>f-7286, TAG to CO, Gen Ground, Ft. Monroe (AGF), 27 Aug 47. 291 .2)4 Negroes; Ltr, TAG to CG, 

Each Army, et al .. 3 Sep 47, sub: Enlistment of Negroes. AGSE- P291.2. 
A PROBLEM OF QUOTAS 189 

in December 1947.61 Finding itself once again exceeding the 10 percent black 

strength figure, the Army suspended the enlistment of all Negroes for nine 

months beginning in April 1949 _62 

In effect, the Gillem Board's critics who predicted that the quota would 

become permanent were correct, but the quota was only the most publicized 

manifestation of the general scheme of apportioning manpower by race 

throughout the Army. General Paul had offered one solution to the problem in 

July 1946. He recommended that each major command and service be al located 

its proportionate share of black troops; that such troops ''have the over-all 

average frequency of AGCT grades occurring among Negro military personnel"; and that major commands and services submit plans for establishing 

enough units and overhead positions to accommodate their total allocations.

63 

But Paul did not anticipate the low-scoring soldier's penchant for reenlistment 

or the ability of some commanders, often on the basis of this fact, to justify the 

rejection of further black allotments. Thus, in pursuit of a racial policy designed 

to promote the efficient use of manpower, the G-1 and G-3 sections of the 

General Staff wrestled for almost five years with the problem of racial balances 

in the various commands, continental armies, and training programs. 

Broader Opportunities 

The equitable distribution of Negroes throughout each major command and 

service was complicated by certain provisions of Circular 124. Along with the 

quota, the policy prescribed grouping black units, not to exceed regimental size, 

with white units in composite organizations and integrating black specialists in 

overhead organizations. The composite organizations were primarily the concern of the G-3 (later the Organization and Training Division) section of the 

General Staff, and in June 1946 its director, Lt. Gen. Charles P. Hall, brought 

the matter to the attention of major commanders. Although the War Department did not want to establish an arbitrary number of black combat units, Hall 

explained, the new policy stressed the development of such units to provide a 

broader base for future expansion, and he wanted more black combat units 

organized as rapidly as trained troops became available. To that end he called 

for a survey of all black units to find out their current organization and assignment.64 

Army Ground Forces reported that it had formed some composite units, but 

its largest black unit, the 25th Regimental Combat Team, had been attached to 

the V Corps at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, instead of being made an organic 

element in a division. Practically all service group headquarters reported 

61Msg, TAG to CG's, All ZI Armies, 19 Dec 47. AGSE- P 291.25'1 

62Msg, TAG to CG, All Armies (21), et al. , 17 Mar 49, WCL 22839; DIP A Summary Sheet for YCofS, I 

Sep 49, sub: Method of Reducing the Negro Reenlistment Rate, CSGPA 291.2 (6 Apr 49). 63DF, D/PA m 0/0T, 30 Jul 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army, WDGPA 

291.2 (15 )ul46). 04Cir as Memo, TAG for CG, AAF ct al. , 10 )un 46, sub: Organization of Negro Manpower in Postwar 

Army, AG 291.2 (4 Jun46). 
190 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

separate black and white battalions under their control, but many of the 

organizations in the Army Service Forces-those under the Provost Marshal 

General and the Surgeon General, for example- still had no black units, let 

alone composite organizations. The Caribbean Defense Command, the 

Trinidad Base Command, and the Headquarters Base Command of the Antilles 

Department reported similar situations. The Mediterranean theater was using 

some Negroes with special skills in appropriate overhead organizations, but in 

the vast European Command Negroes were assigned to separate regiments and 

smaller units. There were two exceptions: one provisional black regiment was attached to the 1st Infantry Division, and a black field artillery battalion was attached to each of the three occupation divisions. The Alaskan Department and 

the Okinawa Base Command had black units, both separate and grouped with 

white units, but the Yokohama Base Command continued to use specially 

skilled Negroes in black units because of the great demand for qualified persons 

in those units. 6, 

To claim, as Hall did to Assistant Secretary Petersen, that black units were 

being used like white units was misleading. Despite the examples cited in the 

survey, many black units still remained independent organizations, and with 

one major exception black combat units grouped with white units were attached 

rather than assigned as organizational elements of a parent unit. This was an important distinction. 66 The constant imposition of attached status on a unit that 

under normal circumstances would be assigned as an organic element of a division introduced a sense of impermanence and alienation just as it relieved the 

division commander of considerable administrative control and hence proprietary interest in the unit. 

Attached status, so common for black units, thus weakened morale and 

hampered training as Petersen well understood. Noting the favorable attitude of 

the division commander, he had asked in April 1946 if it was possible to assign 

the black 555th Parachute Battalion to the celebrated 82d Airborne Division.67 

The answer was no. The commanding general of the Army Ground Forces, 

General Devers, justified attachment rather than assignment of the black battalion to the 82d on the grounds that the Army's race policy called for the progressive adoption of the composite unit and attachment was a part. of this process. Assignment of such units was, on the other hand, part of a long-range plan 

to put the new policy into effect and should still be subject to considerable 

study. Further justifying the status quo, he pointed to the division's low 

strength, which he said resulted from a lack of volunteers. Offering his own 

Memo. D/O&T for ASW, 18 Jul46, sub: Organization of Negro Manpower in Postwar Army, WDGOT 

291.2 . 66 An attached unit, such as a tank destroyer battalion, is one temporarily included in a larger organization: 

an assigned unit is one permanently given to a larger organization as part of its organic establishment. On the 

distinction between attached and assigned status, see Ltr, CSA to CG, CONARC, 21 Jul 55. CSUSA 322.17 

(Di~. and CMH. ''Lineages and Honors: History. Principles. and Preparation.'' June I 962. in CMH. 7Mcmo. Actg, ACofS, G-3, for CG. AGf, 3 jun 46, sub: formation of Composite White·Ncgro Units. 

with attachment, WDGOT 291.21 (30 Apr 46). 
A PROBLEM OF QUOTAS 191 

GENERAL EICHELBERGER, EIGHTH ARMY COMMANDER. inspects 24th Infantry 

troops, Camp Majestic, japan, june 1947. 

variation of the "Catch-22" theme, he suggested that before any black battalion was assigned to a large combat unit, the effect of such an assignment on 

the larger unit's combat efficiency would first have to be studied. Finally, he 

questioned the desirability of having a black unit assume the history of a white 

unit; evidently he did not realize that the intention was to assign a black unit 

with its black history to the division.68 

In the face of such arguments Hall accepted what he called the 

"nonfeasibility" of replacing one of the 82d's organic battalions with the 

555th, but he asked whether an additional parachute battalion could be 

authorized for the division so that the 55 5th could be assigned without 

eliminating a white battalion. He reiterated the arguments for such an assignment, adding that it would invigorate the 555th's training, attract more and 

better black recruits, and better implement the provisions of Circular 124.69 

General Devers remained unconvinced. He doubted that assigning the black 

68Memo, CG, AFG, for CofS, 21 June 46. sub: Formation of Composite White-Negro Units, GNGCT-41 

291.2 (Negro) (3 Jun 46). 

69DF, DIO&T to CG, AGF, 24 Jul 46. sub: Formation of Composite White-Negro Units. WDGOT 

291.21 (30 Apr 46). 
192 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

battalion to the division would improve the battalion's traifling, and he was 

"unalterably opposed" to adding an extra battalion. He found the idea unsound from both a tactical and organizational point of view. It was, he said, 

undesirable to reorganize a division solely to assign a black unit. 70 

General Hall gave up the argument, and the 55 5th remained'attached to the 

82d. Attached status would remain the general pattern for black combat units 

for several years. 71 The assignment of the 24th Infantry to the 25th Infantry 

Division in Japan was the major exception to this rule, but the 24th was the only 

black regiment left intact, and it was administratively difficult to leave such a 

large organization in attached status for long. The other black regiment on active duty, the 25th Infantry, was split; its battalions, still carrying their unit 

designations, were attached to various divisions to replace inactive or unfilled 

organic elements. The 9th and lOth Cavalry, the other major black units, were 

inactivated along with the 2d Cavalry Division in 1944, but reactivated in 1950 

as separate tank battalions. 

That this distinction between attached and assigned status was considered 

important became clear in the fall of 1947. At that time the personnel organization suggested that the word ''separate'' be deleted from a sentence of Circular 

124: "Employment will be in Negro regiments or groups, separate battalions or 

squadrons, and separate companies, troops, or batteries." General Paul reasoned that the word was redundant since a black unit was by definition a 

separate unit. General Devers was strongly opposed to deletion on grounds that 

it would lead to the indiscriminate organization of small black units within 

larger units. He argued that the Gillem Board had provided for black units as 

part of larger units, but not as organic pans. He believed that a separate black 

unit should continue to be attached when it replaced a white unit; otherwise it 

would lose its identity by becoming an organic part of a mixed unit. Larger considerations seem also co have influenced his conclusion: ''Our implementation 

of the Negro problem has not progressed to the degree where we can accept this 

step. We have already progressed beyond that which is acceptable in many states 

and we still have a considerable latitude in the present policy without further 

liberalizing it from the Negro viewpoint. " 72 The Chief of Staff supported Paul's 

view, however, and the word "separate" was excised. 73 

But the practice of attaching rather than assigning black units continued 

until the end of 1949. Only then, and increasingly during 1950, did the Army 

begin to assign a number of black units as organic parts of combat divisions. 

More noteworthy, Negroes began to be assigned to fill the spaces in parts of 

70Memo, CG. AGF. for 0/0&T, I Aug 46, sub: Formation o£ Composite White·Negro Units, CMT 2 to 

OF, 0/0&T to CG, AGF, 24 }ul46, same sub, WOGOT 291.21 (30 Apr46). 71Memo, 0/0&T for SW, 19 Sep 46, sub: Request for Memorandum, WOGOT 29 1.21 (12 Sep 46). 72

0F, CG, AGF, to 0 / P&A . I) Sep 47, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army Policy: 

AGF OF. 27 Aug 47, same sub: both in GNGAP- M 29 1.2 (27 Aug 47). The quote is from the former docu· 

ment. 

730A Cir 32-111, 30 Oct 47. The life of Circular 124 was extended indefinitely by OA Circular 24-II, 17 

Oct47, and OA Ltr AGAO 291.2 (16 Mar49). 
A PROBLEM OF QUOTAS 193 

white units. Thus the 3d Battalion of the 9th Infantry and the 3d Battalion of 

the 188th became black units in 1950. 

Despite the emergence of racially composite units, the Army's execution of 

the Gillem Board recommendation on the integration of black and white units 

was criticized by black leaders. The board had placed no limitation on the size of 

the units to be integrated, and its call for progressive steps to utilize black manpower implied to many that the process of forming composite black and white 

units would continue till it included the smaller service units, which still contained the majority of black troops. It was one thing, the Army staff concluded, 

to assign a self-sustaining black battalion to a division, but quite another to 

assign a small black service unit in a similar fashion. As a spokesman for the Personnel and Administration Division put it in a 1946 address, the Army was' 'not 

now ready to mix Negro and white personnel in the same company or battery, 

for messing and housing." Ignoring the Navy's experience to the contrary, he 

concluded that to do so might provoke serious opposition from the men in the 

ranks and from the American public. 74 

Accordingly, G-1 and G-3 agreed to reject the Mediterranean theater's 

1946 plan to organize composite service units in the 88th Infantry Division 

because such organization "involves the integration of Negro platoons or Negro 

sections into white companies, a combination which is not in accordance with 

the policy as expressed in Circular 124. " 75 In the separate case of black service 

companies-for example, the many transportation truck companies and ordnance evacuation companies-theater commanders tended to combine them 

first into quartermaster trains and then attach them to their combat divisions. 76 

Despite the relaxation in the distinction between attached and assigned 

status in the case of large black units, the Army staff remained adamantly opposed to the combination of small black with small white units. The Personnel 

and Administration Division jealously guarded the orthodoxy of this interpretation. Commenting on one proposal to combine small units in April 1948, 

General Paul noted that while grouping units of company size or greater was 

permissible, the Army had not yet reached the stage where two white companies 

and two black companies could be organized into a single battalion. Until the 

process of forming racially composite units developed to this extent, he told the 

Under Secretary of the Army, William H. Draper, Jr., the experimental mixing 

of small black and white units had no place in the program to expand the use of 

Negroes in the Army. 77 He did not say when such a process would become appropriate or possible. Several months later Paul flatly told the Chief of Staff that 

integration of black and white platoons in a company was precluded by stated 

Army policy. 78 

74Col. H. E. Kessinger, Exec Off, ACofS. G-1. "Utilization of Negro Manpower. 1946," copy in 

WOGPA 291.2 (1946). 

7~DF, ACofS, G-1, to CofS, 3 jun 46, sub: Implementation of the Gillem Board. WOGAP 291.2 (24 

Nov 45); sec also Routing Form, ACofS. G-1, same date, subject, and fi le. 76For the formation of quartermaster uains in Europe, sec Gcis Monograph, pp. 89-90. 

77Mcmo, D/P&A for Under SA, 29 Apr 48. sub: Negro Utilization in the Postwar Army, CSGPA 291.2. 

78Jdem forCofS. 21 Jun 48, CSGPA 291.2. 
194 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Assignments 

The organization of black units was primarily the concern of the Organization and Training Division; the Personnel and Administration Division's major 

emphasis was on finding more jobs for black soldiers in keeping with the Gillem 

Board's call for the use of Negroes on a broader professional scale. This could 

best be done, Paul decided, by creating new black units in a variety of specialties 

and by using more Negroes in overhead spaces in unit headquarters where black 

specialists would be completely interspersed with white. To that end his office 

prepared plans in November 1946 listing numerous occupational specialties that 

might be offered black recruits. It also outlined in considerable detail a proposal 

for converting several organizations to black units, including a field artillery 

(155-mm. howitzer) battalion, a tank company, a chemical mortar company, 

and an ordnance heavy automotive maintenance company. These units would 

be considered experimental in the sense that the men would be specially 

selected and distributed in terms of ability. The officers, Negroes insofar as practical, and cadre noncommissioned officers would be specially assigned. Morale 

and learning ability would be carefully monitored, and special training would 

be given men with below average AGCT scores. At the end of six months, these 

organizations would be measured against comparable white units. Mindful of 

the controversial aspects of his plan, Paul had a draft circulated among the 

major commands and services. 79 

The Army Ground Forces, first to answer, concentrated on Paul's proposal 

for experimental black units. Maj. Gen. Charles L. Bolte, speaking for the commanding general, reported that in July 1946 the command had begun a training 

experiment to determine the most effective assignments for black enlisted men 

in the combat arms. Because of troop reductions and the policy of discharging 

individuals with low test scores, he said, the experiment had lasted only five 

weeks. Five weeks was apparently long enough, however, for Brig. Gen. Benjamin F. Caffey, commander of the 25th Regimental Combat Team (Provisional) , to reach some rather startling conclusions. He discovered that the black 

soldier possessed an untrained and undisciplined mind and lacked confidence 

and pride in himself. In the past the Negro had been unable to summon the 

physical courage and stamina needed to withstand the shocks of modern battle. 

Integrating individual Negroes or small black units into white organizations 

would therefore only lower the standard of efficiency of the entire command. 

He discounted the integration after the Battle of the Bulge, saying that it succeeded only because it came at the end of the war and during pursuit action. "It 

still remains a moot question," Caffey concluded, "as co whether the Negroes 

in integrated units would have fought in a tough attack or defensive battle." 

Curiously enough he went on to say that until Negroes reached the educational 

level of whites, they should be organized into small combat units- battalions 

and smaller- and attached to white organizations in order to learn the proper 

79DF. D/P&A to CG, AGF, ct al .. 16 Nov 46, sub: Proposed Directive, Utilization of Negro Military Per· 

sonnel; sec also P&A Memo for Red, 14 Nov 46; both in WDGPA 291 .2 (12 Jul46). 
A PROBLEM OF QUOTAS 195 

standards of military discipline, conduct, administration, and training. Despite 

its unfavorable opinion of experimental black units, the Army Ground Forces 

did not reject the whole proposal outright but asked for a postponement of six 

months until its own reorganization, required by the War Department, was 

completed.80 

The other forces also rejected the idea of experimental black units. General 

Spaatz once again declared that the mission of the Army Air Forces was already 

seriously hampered by budgetary and manpower limitations and experimentation would only sacrifice time, money. manpower. and training urgently needed 

by the Army Air Forces to fulfill its primary mission. He believed. moreover, 

that such an experiment would be weighted in favor of Negroes since comparisons would be drawn between specially selected and trained black units and 

average white units. 81 In a similar vein the Director of Organization and Training, General Hall, found the conversion "undesirable ac chis time." He also 

concluded that the problem was not limited co training difficulties but involved 

a II combination of factors'' and could be solved through the application of common sense by the local commander. 82 The Chiefs of Ordnance and the Chemical 

Corps, the technical services involved in the proposed experiment, concurred in 

the plan but added that they had no Negroes available for the designated 

units. 83 

In the face of this strong opposition, Paul set aside his plan to establish experimental black units and concentrated instead on the use of Negroes in 

overhead positions. On 10 January 1947 he drew up for the Chief of Staff's office a list of 112 military occupational specialties most commonly needed in 

overhead installations, including skilled jobs in the Signal, Ordnance, Transportation, Medical, and Finance Corps from which Negroes had been excluded. He 

called for an immediate survey of the Army commands to determine specialties 

to which Negroes might be assigned, the number of Negroes that could be used 

in each, and the number of Negroes already qualified and available for immediate assignment. Depending on the answers to this survey, he proposed that 

commanders assign immediately to overhead jobs those Negroes qualified by 

school training, and open the pertinent specialist courses to Negroes. Black 

quotas for the courses would be increased, not only for recruits completing basic 

training, who would be earmarked for assignment to overhead spaces, but also 

for men already assigned to units, who would .be returned to their units for such 

assignments upon completion of their course's. Negroes thus assigned would 

pcdorm the same duties as whites alongside them, but they would be billeted 

80Ltr. Brig Gen B. F. Caffey, CG, 2~rh RCT (Prov), Ft. Benning Ga., t0 CG, AGF, 4 Dec 46, AGF 291.2; 

OF, CG, AGF, to 0/P&A, 22 Nov 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel, WDGPA 291.2 (Negro) 

(16 Nov 46). 81DF, CG, AAF, to 0/P&A, 27 Nov 45, sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel, WDGPA 291.2 (16 

Nov 46). 82Memo, D/O&T for 0/P&A, 4 Dec 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel, WDGOT 291.2 (16 

Nov 46). 83-fabs E and F to OF, 0/P&A to DCofS, 10 Jan 47, sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel in 

Overhead Installations, WDGPA 291.2 (12 Jul46). 
196 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

and messed in separate detachments or attached to existing black units for 

quarters and food. 84 

This proposal also met with some opposition. General Spaatz, for example, 

objected on the same grounds he had used against experimental black units. 

Forcing the military development of persons on the basis of color, General Ira C. 

Eaker, the deputy commander of Army Air Forces, argued, was detrimental to 

the organization as a whole. Spaatz added that it was desirable and necessary to 

select individual men on the basis of their potential contribution to the service 

rather than in response to such criteria as race. S) 

The Acting Deputy Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Henry I. Hodes, objected to 

the timing of the Paul proposal since it would require action by field commanders during a period when continuing mass demobilization ·and severe 

budget limitations were already causing rapid and frequent adjustments, 

especially in overhead installations. He also felt that sending men to school 

would disrupt unit activities; altogether too many men would be assigned to 

overhead jobs, particularly during the period when Negroes were receiving 

training. Finally, he believed that Paul's directive was too detailed. He doubted 

that it was workable because it centralized power in Washington. 86 

General Paul disagreed. The major flow of manpower, he maintained, was 

going to domestic rather than overseas installations. A relatively small shift of 

manpower was contemplated in his plan and would therefore cause litcle 

dislocation. The plan would provide commanders with the trained men they 

had been asking for. School training inevitably required men to be temporarily 

absent from their units, but, since commanders always complained about the 

scarcity of trained Negroes, Paul predicted that they would accept a temporary 

inconvenience in order to have their men school trained. The Gillem Board 

policy had been in effect for nine months, and "no material implementation by 

field commanders has as yet come to the attention of the division." If any 

changes were to be accomplished, Paul declared, "a specific directive must be 

issued." Since the Chief of Scaff had charged the Personnel and Administration 

Division with implementing Gillem Board policy and since that policy expressly 

directed the use of Negroes in overhead positions, it seemed to Paul "inconceivable that any proposition ... designed to improve the caliber of any of 

their Negro personnel would be unworkable in the sense of creating a personnel 

shortage.'' He again recommended that the directive be approved and released 

to the public to "further the spirit and recommendations of the Gillem Board 

Report.' '

87 

His superiors did not agree. Instead of a directive, General Hodes ordered 

yet another survey to determine whether commanders were actually complying 

84DF. DIP&A to DCofS. 10 Jan 47, sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel in Overhead lnstalla· 

dons. WDGPA 291.2 (12 Jul46). 8)DF, CG, AAF (signed by Dcp CG. Lr Gen Ira C. Eaker), to DIP&A. 20 Jan 47, sub: Utilization of 

Negro Military Personnel in Overhead lnsrallarions, WDGPA 291.2 (12 Jul46). 86Mcmo, ADCofS for DIP&A, 24 Jan 47, sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel in Overhead In· 

stallations, WDCSA 291.2 (10 Jan 47). 87Memo, DIP& A for General Hodes, 29 Jan 47, sub: Utiliz:uion of Negro Personnel in Overhead lnstalla· 

tions. WDGPA 291.2 (12 Jul46). 
A PROBLEM OF QUOTAS 197 

with Circular 124. He wanted all commands to itemize all the occupation 

specialties of major importance that contained black troops in overhead spaces. 88 

Needless to say, the survey added little to the Army's knowledge of its racial 

problems. Most commanders reported full compliance with the circular and had 

no further recommendations. 

With rare exceptions their statistics proved their claims specious. The Far 

East Command, for example, reported no Negroes in overhead spaces, although 

General MacArthur planned to incorporate about 400 Negroes into the bulk 

overhead un.its in Japan in July 1947. He reported that he would assign Negroes 

to overhead positions when qualified men could be spared. For the present they 

were needed in black units. 89 Other commands produced similar statistics. The 

Mediterranean theater, 8 percent black, had only four Negroes in 2, 700 

overhead spaces, a decrease over the previous year, because, as its commander 

explained, a shortage of skilled t'echnicians and noncommissioned officers in 

black units meant that none could be spared. More than 20 percent black, the 

Alaskan Department had no Negroes in overhead spaces. In Europe, on the 

other hand, some 2, 125 overhead spaces, 18.5 percent of the total, were filled 

by Negroes.90 

Although Negroes held some 7 percent of all overhead positions in the field 

services, the picture was far from clear. More than 8 percent of the Army Air 

Forces' 105,000 overhead spaces, for example, were filled by Negroes, but the 

Army Ground Forces used only 473 Negroes, who occupied 5 percent of its 

overhead spaces. In the continental armies almost 14,000 Negroes were assigned 

to overhead, 13. 3 5 percent of the total of such spaces-a more than equitable 

figure. Yet most were cooks, bakers, truck drivers, and the like; all finance 

clerks, motion picture projectionists, and personnel assistants were white. In the 

field commands the use of Negroes in Signal, Ordnance, Transportation, 

Medical, and Finance overhead spaces was at a minimum, although figures 

varied from one command to the other. The Transportation Corps, more than 

23 percent black, used almost 25 percent of its Negroes in overhead; the 

Chemical Corps, 28 percent black, used more than 30 percent of its Negroes in 

overhead. At the same time virtually all skilled military occupational specialties 

were closed to Negroes in the Signal Corps, and the Chief of Finance stated 

flatly: ''It is considered impractical to have negro overhead assigned to these 

[field] activities and none are utilized. "91 

88Mcmo, ADCofS for D/P&A, 4 Feb 47. sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel in Overhead In· 

stallations, WDCSA 291.2 (10 Jan 47); Lu, TAG t0 CG, AAF, cr al., 5 Mar 47. same sub. AGAM-PM 291.2 

(27 Feb 47). 

89Msg. CINCFE to WD for AGPP-P. 3 May 47. C-52352. Although CINCFE was a joint commander. his 

report concerned Army personnel only. 90Ltr, CG, MTO. toT AG, 16 Apr 47, sub: Utilization of Neg to Military Personnel in Overhead lnstalla· 

tions; Ltr, CG, Alaskan Dept, to TAG, 14 Apr 47. same sub; Lrr, CG. EUCOM , to TAG, 15 Apr 47, same 

sub. All in AGPP-P 291.2 (6 Feb 47). 

91The reportS of all these services are inclosures tO DF, TAG to DIP&A, 23 Apr 47. sub: Utilization of 

Negro Military Personnel in Overhead Installations, AGPP-P 291.2 (6 Feb 47). The quote is from Ltr, Chief 

of Finance Corps toT AG, 25 Mar 4 7, same sub. 
198 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

The survey attested to a dismal lack of progress in the development of 

specialist training for Negroes. Although all the commanders of the zone of interior armies reported that Negroes had equal opportunity with whites to attend 

Army schools, in fact more than half of all the Army's courses were not open to 

black soldiers regardless of their qualifications. The Ordnance Department, for 

example, declared that all it$ technical courses were open to qualified Negroes, 

but as late as November 1947 the Ordnance School in Atlanta, Georgia, had 

openings for 440 whites but none for blacks. 

Ironically, the results of the Hodes survey were announced just four days 

short'of Circular 124 's fim birthday. Along with the other surveys and directives 

of the past year, it demonstrated that in several important particulars the Gillem 

Board's recommendations were being only partially and indifferently followed. 

Obviously, some way must be found to dispel the atmosphere of indifference, 

and in some quarters hostility, that now enveloped Circular 124. 

A New Approach 

A new approach was possible mainly because General Paul and his staff had 

amassed considerable experience during the past year in how to use black troops. 

They had come to understand that the problems inherent in broadening the 

employment of black soldiers- the procurement of desirable black recruits, 

their training, especially school training for military occupational specialties, 

and their eventual placement in spaces that used that training-were interrelated and that progress in one of these areas was impossible without advances 

in the other two. In November 1947 the Personnel and Administration Division 

decided to push for a modest step-by-step increase in the number of jobs open 

to Negroes, using this increase to justify an expansion of school quotas for 

Negroes and a special recruitment program. 

It was a good time for such an initiative, for the Army was in the midst of an 

important reorganization of its program for specialist training. On 9 May 1947 

the War Department had introduced a Career Guidance Program for managing 

the careers of enlisted men. To help each soldier develop his maximum potential and provide the most equitable system for promotions, it divided all Army 

jobs into several career fields- two, for example, were infantry and food service-and established certain job progressions, or ladders, within each field. An 

enlisted man could move up the ladder in his career field to increased responsibility and higher rank as he completed school courses, gained experience, and 

passed examinations. 92 

General Paul wanted to take advantage of this unusually fluid situation. He 

could point out that black soldiers must be included in the new program, but 

how was he to fit them in? Black units lacked the diverse jobs open to whites, 

and as a result Negroes were clustered in a relatively small number of military 

specialties with few career fields open to them. Moreover, some 111 of the 

Army's 124 listed school courses required an Army General Classification Test 

92wo Cir 118. 9 May 47. 
A PROBLEM OF QUOTAS 199 

score of ninety for admission, and the Personnel and Administration Division 

discovered that 72 percent of Negroes enlisted between April 1946 and March 

1947 as compared. to 29 percent of whites scored below that minimum. Excluded from schools, these men would find it difficult to move up the career 

ladders.93 

Concerned that the new career program would discriminate against black 

soldiers, Paul could not, however, agree with the solution suggested by Roy K. 

Davenport, an Army manpower expert. On the basis of a detailed study that he 

and a representative of the Personnel and Administration Division conducted 

on Negroes in the career program, Davenport concluded that despite significant 

improvement in the quality of black recruits in recent months more than half 

the black enlisted men would still fail to qualify for the schooling demanded in 

the new program. He wanted the Army to consider dropping the test score requirement for school admission and substituting a "composite of variables," including length of service in a military occupation and special performance 

ratings. Such a system, he pointed out, would insure the most capable in terms 

of performance would be given opportunities for schooling and would eliminate 

the racial differential in career opportunity. It was equally important, Davenport thought, to broaden arbitrarily the list of occupational specialties, open all 

school courses to Negroes, and increase the black quotas for courses already open 

to them.94 

Mindful of the strong opposition to his recent attempts to train Negroes for 

new overhead assignments, General Paul did not see how occupational 

specialties could be increased until new units or converted white ones were 

formed, or, for that matter, how school quotas could be increased unless positions for Negroes existed to justify the training. He believed that the Army 

should first widen the employment of black units and individuals in overhead 

spaces, and then follow up with increased school quotas and special recruitment. 

Paul had already learned from recent surveys that the number of available 

overhead positions would allow only a modest increase in the number of 

specialized jobs available to Negroes; any significant increase would require the 

creation of new black units. Given the limitations on organized units, any increase would be at the expense of white units. 

The Organization and Training Division had the right to decide which units 

would be white and which black, and considering the Strong opposition in that 

division to the creation of more black units, an opposition that enjoyed support 

from the Chief of Staff's office, Paul's efforts seemed in vain. But again an 

unusual opportunity presented itself when the Chief of Staff approved a 

reorganization of the general reserve in late 1947. It established a continentally 

based, mobile striking force of four divisions with supporting units. Each unit 

would have a well-trained core of Regular Army or other troops who might be 

9lP&A Memo for Red, attached to OF, 0/P&A toT AG, II Jun 47. sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower 

in the Postwar Army in Connection With Enlisted Career Guidance Program, WOGPA 291.2 (II Jun 47). 

9

4

0avenpon, "Matters Relating to the Participation of Negro Personnel in the Career Program," attached 

to OF. 0/P&A to Brig Gcn J. ]. O'Hare. Chief. Mil Pers Mgt Gp. P&A Oiv. 3 Nov 47. WOGPA 291.2 (II Jul 

47). 
200 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

ARMY SPECIALISTS REPORT FOR AIRBORNE TRAINING. Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 

1948. 

expected to remain in the service for a considerable period of time. Manpower 

and budget limitations precluded a fully manned and trained general reserve, 

but new units for the four continental divisions, which were in varying stages of 

readiness, were authorized. ~ 

Here was a chance to create some black units, and Paul jumped at it. During 

the activation and reorganization of the units for the general reserve he persuaded the Organization and Training Division to convert nineteen white units 

to black: seven combat (including infantry and field artillery battalions), five 

combat support, and seven service units for a total of 8,000 spaces. Nine of the 

units were attached to general reserve divisions, including the 2d Armored, 2d 

Infantry, and 82d Airborne Division. The rest, nondivisional elements, were 

assigned to the various continental armies.96 

With the spaces in hand , the Personnel and Administration Division 

launched a special drive in late December 1947 to secure 6,318 Negroes, 565 

men per week, above the normal recruiting quotas. It called on the commanding generals of the continental armies to enlist men for three years' service in the 

9)for a discussion of the reorganization of the general reserve. see the introduction to John B. Wilson's 

"U.S. Army Lineage and Honors: The Division, .. in CMH. 

96Ltrs, TAG to CG, Each Army, ct al., 18 Dec 47 and I Mar 48, sub: Activation and Reorganization of 

Certain Units of the General Reserve, AGA0- 1 322 (28 Nov 47 and 8 Jan 48). 
A PROBLEM OF QUOTAS 201 

Regular Army from among those who had previous military service, had completed high school, or had won the Bronze Star, Commendation Ribbon, ox a 

decoration for valor, and who could make a "reasonable" score on the classification test. After basic training at Fort Dix and Fort Knox, the men would be 

eligible for specialized schooling and direct assignment to the newly converted 

units.97 

The conversion of units did not expand to any great extent the range of 

military specialties open to Negroes because they were already serving in similarly organized units. But it did increase the number of skilled occupation slots 

available to them. To force a further increase in the number of school-trained 

Negroes, Paul asked The Adjutant General to determine how many spaces for 

school-trained specialists existed in the units converted from white to black and 

how many spaces for school-trained specialists were unfilled in black units 

worldwide. He wanted to increase the quotas for each school-trained specialty 

to insure filling all these positions.98 He also arranged to increase black quotas in 

certain Military Police, Signal, and Medical Corps courses, and he insisted that a 

directive be sent to all major continental commands making mandatory the use 

of Negroes trained under the increased school quotas.99 Moving further along 

these lines, Paul suggested The Adjutant General assign a black officer to study 

measures that might broaden the use of Negroes in the Army, increase school 

quotas for them, select black students properly, and assign trained black soldiers 

to suitable specialties. 100 

The Adjutant General assigned Maj. James D. Fowler, a black graduate of 

West Point, class of 1941, to perform all these tasks. Fowler surveyed the nineteen newly converted units and recommended that 1,134 men, approximately 

20 percent of those enlisted for the special expansion of the general reserve, be 

trained in thirty-seven courses of instruction- an increase of 103 black spaces in 

these courses. Examining worldwide Army strength to determine deficiencies in 

school-trained specialties in black units, he recommended a total increase of 172 

spaces in another thirty-seven courses. Studying the organizational tables of 

more than two hundred military bases, Fowler recommended that black school 

quotas for another eleven military occupational specialties, for which there were 

currently no black quotas, be set at thirty-nine spaces. 

On the basis of these recommendations, the Army increased the number of 

courses with quotas for Negroes from 30 to 62; black quotas were increased in 14 

courses; 16 others remained unchanged or their black quotas were slightly 

decreased. New courses were opened to Negroes in the Adjutant General's 

97Army Memo 600-750-26, 17 Dec 47. sub: Enlistment of Negroes for Special Units; OF. 0/P&A to 

TAG. 27 Jan 48, sub: Training Div Assignmem Procedures for Negro Pers Enlisting Under Provisions of DA 

Memo 600-750-26, 17 Dec 47, CSGPA 29 1.2 (7 Jan 48). 

98DF, 0 /P&A to TAG, 27 Jan 48, sub: Training Div Assignment Procedures for Negro Personnel 

Enlisting Under Provisions of DA Memo 600-7)0-26, 17 Dec 47; ibid .. 29 Jan 48, sub: Notification to Zl 

Armies of Certain Negro School Training; both in CSGPA 291.2 (7 Jan 48). 

99Jbid ., I Mar 48, sub: Utilization of Negro School Trained Personnel. CSGPA 291.2 (7 Jan 48). 

100DF, D/P&A for Brig Gen Joseph J. O'Hare, Chief Mil Pers Mgt Gp, 3 Nov 47. CSGPA 291.2 (3 Nov 

47). 
202 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES. 1940-1965 

School, the airborne section of the Infantry School, and the Artillery, Armored, 

Engineer, Medical, Military Police, Ordnance, Quartermaster, Signal, and 

Transportation schools. Courses with increased quotas were in Transportation, 

Quartermaster, Ordnance, and Engineer schools. 101 The number of black 

soldiers in courses open to recruits quickly grew from 5 to 13.7 percent of total 

enrollment, and the number of courses open to Negroes rose from 30 to 4'8 percent of all the entry courses in the Army school system. 

The Quota System: An Assessment 

The conversion of nineteen units from white to black in December 1947, the 

procurement of 6,000 Negroes to man these units, and the increases in black 

quotas for the Army schools to train specialists for these and other black units 

worldwide marked the high point of the Army's attempt to broaden the 

employment of Negroes under the terms of the Gillem Board policy. As Paul 

well knew, the training of black troops was linked to their placement and until 

the great expansion of the Army in 1950 for the Korean War no other units were 

converted from white to 'black. The increase in black combat units and the 

spre?-1 in the range of military occupations for black troops, therefore, were 

never achieved as planned. The interval between wars ended just as it began 

with the majority of white soldiers serving in combat or administrative units and 

the majority of black soldiers continuing to work in service or combat support 

units.'o2 

The Personnel and Organization Division made no further requests for increased school quotas for Negroes, and even those increases already approved 

were short-lived. As soon as the needs of the converted units were met, the 

school quotas for Negroes were reduced to a level sufficient to fill the replacement needs of the black units. By March 1949, spaces for black students in the 

replacement stream courses had declined from the 237 recommended by Major 

Fowler to eighty-two; the number of replacement stream courses open to 

Negroes fell from 48 percent of all courses offered to 19.8 percent. Fowler had 

expected to follow up his study of school quotas in the Military Police, Signal 

Corps, and Medical Corps with surveys of other schools figuring in the Career 

Guidance Program, but since no additional overhead positions were ever converted from white to black, no further need existed for school quota studies. The 

three-point study suggested by Paul to find ways to increase school quotas for 

Negroes was never made. 

The War Department's problems with its segregation policy were only intensified by its insistence on maintaining a racial quota. Whatever the authors' intention, the quota was publicized as a guarantee of black participation. In practice it not only restricted the number of Negroes in the Army but also limited 

101Mcmo, Chief. Morale, and Welfare Br, P&A. for Chief. Mil Pers Mgt Gp. P&A, 27 Feb 48. sub: School 

Input Quotas for Enlisted Personnel From the Replacement Stream (other than Air), CSGPA 291.2. 102Memo. Brig Gen }. }. O'Hare, Dep Dir, P&A. for SA. 9 Mar 48, sub: Implementation of WD Circular 

124, CSGPA 291.2. 
A PROBLEM OF QUOTAS 203 

BRIDGE PLAYERS, SEAVIEW SERVICE CLUB. TOKYO. JAPAN, 1948 

the number and variety of black units that could be formed and consequently 

the number and variety of jobs available to Negroes. Further, it restricted the 

openings for Negroes in the Army's training schools. 

At the same time, enlistment policies combined with Selective Service 

regulations to make it difficult for the Army to produce from irs black quota 

enough men with the potential to be trained in those skills required by a variety 

of units. Attracted by the superior economic status promised by the Army, the 

average black soldier continued to reenlist, thus blocking the enlistment of 

potential military leaders from the increasing number of educated black youths. 

This left the Army with a mass of black soldiers long in service but too old to 

fight, learn new techniques, or provide leadership for the future. Subject to 

charges of discrimination, the Army only fitfully and for limited periods tried to 

eliminate low scorers to make room for more qualified men. Yet to the extent to 

which it failed to attract educated Negroes and provide them with modern 

military skills, it failed to perform a principal function of the peacetime Army, 

that of preparing a cadre of leaders for future wars. 

In discussing the problem of low-scoring Negroes it should be remembered 

that the Army General Classification Test, universally accepted in the armed 

services as an objective device to measure ability, has been seriously questioned 
204 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

by some manpower expe~ts. Since World War II, for example, educational 

psychologists have learned that ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds 

have an important influence on performance in general testing. Davenport, who 

eventually became a senior manpower official in the Department of Defense 

has. for one, concluded that the test scores created a distorted picture of the 

mental ability of the black soldier. He has also questioned the fairness of the 

Army testing system, charging that uniform time periods were not always provided for black and white recruits taking the tests and that this injustice was only 

one of several inequalities of test administration that might have contributed to 

the substantial differences in the scores of applicants. 103 

The accuracy of test scores can be ignored when the subject is viewed from 

the perspective of manpower utilization. In the five years after World War II, 

the actual number of white soldiers who scored in the lowest test categories 

equaled or exceeded the number of black soldiers. The Army had no particular 

difficulty using these white soldiers to advantage, and in fact refused to 

discharge all Class V men in 1946. Segregation was the heart of the matter; the 

less gifted whites could be scattered throughout the Army but the less gifted 

blacks were concentrated in the segregated black units. 

Reversing the coin, what could the Army do with the highly qu:tlified black 

soldier? His technical skills were unneeded in the limited number and variety of 

black units; he was barred from white units. In an attempt to deal with this 

problem, the Gillem policy directed that Negroes with special skills or qualifications be employed in overhead detachments. Such employment, however, 

depended in great parr on the willingness of commanders to use school-trained 

Negroes. Many of these officers complained that taking the best qualified 

Negroes out of black units for assignment to overhead detachments deprived 

black units of their leaders. Furthermore, overhead units represented so small a 

parr of the whole that they had little effect on the Army's problem. 

The racial quota also complicated the postwar reduction in Army strength. 

Since the strength and composition of the Army was fixed by the defense 

budget and military planning, the majority of new black soldiers produced by 

the quota could be organized into units only at the expense of white units 

already in existence. In light of past performance of black units and in the interests of efficiency and economy, particularly at a time of reduced operating 

funds and a growing cold war, how could the Army justify converting efficient 

white units into less capable black units? The same question applied co the formation of composite units. Grouping lower scoring black units with white units, 

many of the Army staff believed, would lower the efficiency of the whole and 

complicate the Army's relations with the civilian community. As a result, the 

black units remained largely separate, limited in number, and tremendously 

overstrength throughout the postwar period. 

103Ltr. Roy K. Davenpon to author, II Dec 7 1, CMH files. Davenport became Deputy Under Secretary of 

the Army and later Deputy Assist am Secretary o£ Defense (Manpower Planning and Research) in the Johnson 

administration. 
A PROBLEM OF QUOTAS 205 

Some of these problems, at least, might have been solved had the Army 

created a special staff group to oversee the new policy, a key proposal of the 

Gillem Board. The Personnel and Administration Division was primarily interested in individuals, in trying to place qualified Negroes on an individual 

basis; the Organization and Training Division was primarily concerned with 

units, in trying to expand the black units to approximate the combat to service 

ratio of white units. These interests conflicted at times, and with no single 

agency possessing overriding authority, matters came to an impasse, blocking 

reform of Army practices. Instead, the staff played a sterile numbers game, seeking to impose a strict ratio everywhere. But it was impossible to have a 10 percent proportion of Negroes in every post, in every area, in every overseas theater; 

it was equally impossible co have 10 percent in every activity, in every arm and 

service, in every type of task. Yet wherever the Army failed to organize its black 

strength by quota, it was open to charges of racial discrimination. 

lc would be a mistake co overlook the signs of racial progress achieved under 

the Gillem Board policy. Because of its provisions thousands of Negroes came to 

serve in the postwar Regular Army, many of them in a host of new assignments 

and occupations. But if the policy proved a qualified success in terms of 

numbers, it still failed to gain equal treatment and opportunity for black 

soldiers, and in the end the racial quotas and diverse racial units better served 

those who wanted to keep a segregated Army. 
CHAPTER 8 

Segregation's Consequences 

The Army staff had to overcome tremendous obstacles in order to carry out 

even a modest number of the Gillem Board's recommendations. In addition to 

prejudices the Army shared with much of American society and the institutional 

inertia that often frustrates change in so large an organization, the staff faced 

the problem of making efficient soldiers out of a large group of men who were 

for the most pare seriously deficient in education, training, and motivation. To 

the extent that it overcame these difficulties, the Army's postwar racial policy 

must be judged successful and, considered in the context of the times, progresstve. 

Nevertheless, the Gillem Board policy was doomed from the start. Segregation was at the heart of the race problem. Justified as a means of preventing 

racial trouble, segregation only intensified it by concentrating the less able and 

poorly motivated . Segregation increased the problems of all commanders concerned and undermined the prestige of black officers. It exacerbated the feelings 

of the nation's largest minority toward the Army and multiplied demands for 

change. In the end Circular 124 was abandoned because the Army found it impossible to fight another war under a policy of racial quotas and units. But if the 

quota had not defeated the policy, ocher problems attendant on segregation 

would probably have been sufficient to the task. 

Discipline and Morale Among Black Troops 

By any measure of discipline and morale, black soldiers as a group posed a 

serious problem to the Army in the postwar period. The standard military indexes-serious incidents statistics, venereal disease rates, and number of courtsmartial- revealed black soldiers in trouble out of all proportion co their percentage of the Army's population. When' these personal infractions and crimes were 

added to the riots and serious racial incidents that continued to occur in the 

Army all over the world after the war, the dimensions of the problem became 

clear. 

In 1945, when Negroes accounted for 8.5 percent of the Army's average 

strength, black prisoners entering rehabilitation centers, disciplinary barracks, 

and federal institutions were 17.3 percent of the Army total. In 1946, when the 
SEGREGATION'S CONSEQUENCES 207 

average black strength had risen to 9.35 percent of the Army's total, 25.9 percent of the soldiers sent to the stockade were Negroes. The following tabulation 

gives their percentage of all military prisoners by offense: 

Military Offenses 

Absent without leave ....... . .... . .. . . •. .. . •....... . .. •... . . •. . 

Desertion .... . ....... . . . .. . ......... •.. . ......... . .... .. .. •.. 

Misbehavior before the enemy ........ . .•.. . .... . .. . . . .. . .. . .. •.. 

Violation of arrest or confincmcnr ... .... •. .. . . ... . •. . ......... . .. 

Discreditable conduct toward superior . . .•.. . . •.... •. .... . .. . .. •.. 

Civil Offenses 

Murder .. . .... •.. . . , . . ... , .... . ... .• .. . . . ..... •.... •.... 

Rape . . .. . .. .. . ....... . .. , . .. ... . . . •. . . . •.... •.... •.. .. 

Robbery ..... . . . ........ . . . . . .. . .... . ......... •.... •... . ..... 

Manslaughter ..... . ........ . ....... . .... .• .... •..... •.. . .. . .. 

Burglary and housebreaking .. . .... •.. . . . .... •.. . . •.... •..... . ... 

Larceny .. . .. . .. . . .. . . ..... . ..... . .. •.. . . •.. . . •.. . . •... . . . . .. 

Forgery ....... . .. . .. •. . .. . . . .. •.. . . . . . .. •.... •.... •..... . . . . 

Assault . .. .. .... . ..... . ...... . .... . ......... . .... . . . . .. . .. . . . 

Sotlf&e: Correction Branch. TAGO, copy in CMH. 

Negro 

Percentage 

13.4 

17.4 

1.9 

12.6 

49.6 

62.2 

53.1 

3.U 

46.3 

29.0 

17.2 

8.9 

59.0 

The most common explanation offered for such statistics is that fundamental 

injustices drove these black servicemen to crime. Probably more to the point, 

most black soldiers, especially during the early postwar period, served in units 

burdened with many disadvantaged individuals, soldiers more likely to get into 

trouble given the characteristically weak leadership in these units. But another 

explanation for at least some of these crime statistics hinged on commanders' 

power to define serious offenses. In general, unit commanders had a great deal 

of discretion in framing the charges brought against an alleged offender; indeed, where some minor offenses were concerned officers could even conclude 

that a given infraction was not a serious matter at all and simply dismiss the 

soldier with a verbal reprimand and a warning not to repeat his offense. 

Whereas one commander might decide that a case called for a charge of aggravated assault, another. faced with the same set of facts, might settle for a 

charge of simple assault. If it is reasonable to assume that, as a part of the pattern of discrimination, Negroes accused of offenses like misconduct toward 

superiors, AWOL, and assault often received less generous treatment from their 

officers than white servicemen, then it is reasonable to suspect that statistics on 

Negroes involved in crime may reflect such discriminatory treatment. 

The crime figures were particularly distressing to the individual black 

soldier, as indeed they were to his civilian counterpart, because as a member of a 

highly visible minority he became identified with the wrongdoing of some of his 

fellows, spectacularly reported in the press, while his own more typical attendance to orders and competent performance of duty were more often buried in 

the Army's administrative reportS. In particular, Negroes among the large 
208 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

overseas commands suffered embarrassment. The Gillem Board policy was announced just as the Army began the occupation of Germany and Japan. As 

millions of veterans returned home, to be replaced in lesser numbers by 

volunteers, black troops began to figure prominently in the occupation forces. 

On 1 January 1947 the Army had 59,795 Negroes stationed overseas, 10.77 percent of the total number Of overseas troops, divided principally between the two 

major overseas commands. By 1 March 1948, in keeping with the general reduction of forces, black strength overseas was reduced to 23,387 men, but black 

percentages in Europe and the Far East remained practically unchanged.' It was 

among these Negroes, scattered throughout Germany and Japan, that most of 

the disciplinary problems occurred . 

During the first two years of peace, black soldiers consistently dominated the 

Army's serious-incident. rate, a measure of indictments and accusations involving troops in crimes against persons and property. In June 1946, for example, 

black soldiers in the European theater were involved in serious incidents (actual 

and alleged) at the rate of 2. 57 cases per 1,000 men. The rate among white 

soldiers for the same period was .79 cases per 1,000. The rate for both groups 

rose considerably in 194 7. The figure for Negroes climbed to a yearly average of 

3. 94 incidents per 1, 000; the figure for whites, reflecting an even greater gain, 

reached 1.88. These crime rates were not out of line with America's national 

crime rate statistics, which, based on a sample of 17 3 cities, averaged about 3. 2 5 

during the same period. 2 Nevertheless, the rate was of particular concern to the 

government because the majority of the civil offenses were perpetuated against 

German and Japanese nationals and therefore lowered the prestige and effectiveness of the occupation forces. 

Less important but still a serious internal problem for the Army was a 

parallel rise in the incidence of venereal disease. Various reasons have been advanced for the great postwar rise in the Army's venereal disease rate. It is obvious, for example, that the rapid conversion from war to peacetime duties gave 

many American soldiers new leisure and freedom to engage in widespread 

fraternization with the civilian population. Serious economic dislocation in the 

conquered countries drove many citizens into a life of prostitution and crime. By 

the same token, the breakdown of public health services had removed a major 

obstacle to the spread of social disease. But whatever the reasons, a high rate of 

venereal disease-the overseas rate was three times greater than the rate reponed 

for soldiers in the United States- reflected a serious breakdown in military 

discipline, posed a threat to the combat effectiveness of the commands, and 

produced lurid rumors and reports on Army morality. 

As in the case of crime statistics, the rate of venereal disease for black soldiers 

in the overseas commands far exceeded the figure for whites. The Eighth Army, 

the major unit in the Far East, reported for the month of June 1946 1,263 cases 

of venereal disease for whites, or 139 cases per 1,000 men per year; 769 cases 

were reponed for Negroes, or 1,186 cases per 1, 000 men per year. The rates for 

1

STM-30. Strength of the Army, I Jan 47 and I Mar 48. 2Geis Monograph, pp. 138-39 and Chan 4. 
SEGREGATION'S CONSEQUENCES 209 

the European Command for July 1946 stood at 806 cases per 1,000 Negroes per 

year as compared with 203 for white soldiers. The disease rate improved considerably during 1947 in both commands, but still the rates for black rroops 

averaged 354 per 1,000 men per year in Eighth Army compared to 89 for whites. 

In Europe the rate was 663 per 1,000 men per year for Negroes compared to 172 

for whites. At the same time the rate for all soldiers in the United States was 58 

per 1,000 per year. 3 Some critics question the accuracy of these statistics, charging that more white soldiers, with informal access to medical treatment, were 

able to escape detection by the Medical Department's statisticians, at least in 

cases of more easily treated strains of venereal disease. 

The court-martial rate for black soldiers serving overseas was also higher than 

for white soldiers. Black soldiers in Europe, for example, were coun-martialed at 

the rate of 3.48 men per 1,000 during the third quarter of 1946 compared with a 

1.14 rate for whites. A similar situation existed in the Far East where the black 

service units had a monthly coun-marcial rate nearly double the average rate of 

the Eighth Army as a whole. ~ 

The disproportionate black crime and disease rates were symptomatic of a 

condition that also revealed itself in the racially oriented riots and disturbances 

that continued to plague the postwar Army. Sometimes black soldiers were 

merely reacting to blatant discrimination countenanced by their officers, to 

racial insults, and at times even to physical assaults, but nevertheless they 

reacted violently and in numbers. The resulting incidents prompted investigations, recriminations, and publicity. 

Two such disturbances, more spectacular than the typical flare-up, and important because they influenced Army attitudes toward blacks, occurred at 

Army bases in the United States. The first was a mutiny at MacDill Airfield. 

Florida, which began on 27 October 1946 at a dance for black noncommissioned 

officers to which privates were denied admittance. Military police were called 

when a fight broke out among the black enlisted men and rapidly developed 

into a belligerent demonstration by a crowd that soon reached mob proportions. 

Police fire was answered by members of the mob and one policeman and one 

rioter were wounded. Urged on by its ringleaders, the mob then overwhelmed 

the main gate area and disarmed the sentries. The rioters retained control of the 

area until early the next day, when the commanding general persuaded them to 

disband. Eleven Negroes were charged with mutiny. 5 A second incident, a riot 

with strong racial overtones. occurred at Fort Leavenworth in May .1947 following an altercation between white and black prisoners in the Army Disciplinary 

3Jbid. , pp. 138-39; Eighth Army (AFPAC) Hist Div, Occupational Monograph of the Eighth Army itT 

japan (hereafter AFPAC Monograph). 3:17 1. 4Geis Monograph; AFPAC Monograph, 3:87-88 and charts, 4:9 1-97 and JAG Illus. No.3. It should be 

noted that on occasion individual white units registered disciplinary rates spectacularly higher than these 

averages. In a nine· month period in 1946-47. for example. a 120-man white unit stationed in Vienna, 

Austria, had 10 general couns-manial , between 30 and 40 special and summary couns-manial, and 40 of its 

members separated under the provisions of AR 368-369. 

5• ' History of MacDill Army Airfield. 326th AAB Unit, October 1946," pp . 10-11. AFCHO files. 
210 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Barracks. The rioting, caused by allegations of favoritism accorded to prisoners, 

lasted for two days; one man was killed and six were injured.6 

Disturbances in overseas commands, although less serious, were of deep concern to the Army because of the international complications. In April 1946, for 

example, soldiers of the 449th Signal Construction Detachment threw stones at 

two French officers who were driving through the village of Weyersbusch in the 

Rhine Palatinate. The officers, one of them injured, returned to the village with 

French MP's and requested an explanation of the incident. They were quickly 

surrounded by about thirty armed Negroes of the detachment who, according to 

the French, acted in an aggressive and menacing manner. As a result, the 

Supreme French Commander in Germany requested his American counterpart 

to remove all black troops from the French zone. The U.S. commander in 

Europe, General Joseph T. McNarney, investigated the incident, counmarcialed its instigators, and transferred the entire detachment out of the 

French zone. At the same time his staff explained to the French that to prohibit 

the stationing of Negroes in the area would be discriminatory and contrary to 

Army policy. Black specialists continued to operate in the French zone, 

although none were subsequently stationed there permanemly. 7 

The Far East Command also suffered racial incidents .. The Eighth Army 

reported in 1946 that "racial agitation" was one of the primary causes of 

assault, the most frequent violent crime among American troops in Japan . This 

racial agitation was usually limited to the American community, however, and 

seldom involved the civilian population. 8 

The task of maintaining a biracial Army overseas in peacetime was marked 

with embarrassing incidents and time-consuming investigations. The Army was 

constantly hearing about its racial problems overseas and getting no end of advice. For example, in May 1946 Louis Laurier, chief of the Negro Newspaper 

Publishers Association news service, informed the Assistant Secretary of War 

that fifty-five of the seventy American soldiers executed for crimes in the European theater were black. Most were category IV and V men. "In light of this 

fact," Laurier charged, "the blame for the comparatively high rate of crime 

among black soldiers belongs to the American educational system. ••'.1 

But when a delegation of publishers from Laurier's organization toured 

European installations during the same period, the members took a more comprehensive look at the Seventh Army's race problems. They told Secretary Patterson that they found all American soldiers reacting similarly to poor leadership, substandard living conditions, and menial occupations whenever such conditions existed. Although they professed to see no difference in the conduct of 

white and black troops, they went on to list factors that contributed to the bad 

conduct of some of the black troops including the dearth of black officers, 

hostility of military police, inadequate recreation, and poor camp location . They 

also pointed out that many soldiers in the occupation had been shipped overseas 

6Florcncc Murray. ed., The Negro Handbook, 1949 (New York : Macmillan. 1949). pp. 109-10. 7Gcis Monograph, pp. 4~-47. 

8AfPACMonograph. 2: 176. 

9Ltr, Louis R. Lauticr to Howard C. Petersen, 28 May 46. ASW 291.2 (NTI. 
SEGREGATION'S CONSEQUENCES 211 

without basic training, scored low in the classification tests, and served under 

young and inexperienced noncoms. Many black regulars, on the 6ther hand, 

once proud members of combat units, now found themselves performing 

menial tasks in the backwaters of the occupation. Above all, the publishers 

witnessed widespread racial discrimination, a condition that followed inevitably, they believed, from the Army's segregation policy. Conditions in the 

Army appeared to them to facilitate an immediate shift to integration; conditions in Europe and elsewhere made such a shift imperative. Yet they found 

most commanders in Europe still unaware of the Gillem Board Report and its 

liberalizing provisions. and little being done to encourage within the Army the 

sensitivity to racial matters that makes life in a biracial society bearable. Until 

the recommendations of the board were carried out and discrimination stopped, 

they warned the secretary, the Army must expect racial flare-ups to continue. 10 

Characteristically. the Secretary of War's civilian aide, Marcus Ray, never 

denied evidence of misconduct among black troops, but concentrated instead 

on finding the cause. Returning from a month's tour of Pacific installations in 

September 1946, he bluntly pointed out to Secretary Patterson that high 

venereal disease and court-martial rates among black troops were ''in direct proportion to the high percentage of Class IV and Vs among the Negro personnel." 

Given Ray's conclusion, the solution was relatively simple: the Army should 

"vigorously implement" its recently promulgated policy, long supported by 

Ray, and discharge persons with test scores of less than seventy. 11 

The civilian aide was not insensitive to the effects of segregation on black 

soldiers, but he stressed the practical results of the Army's policy instead of making a sweeping indictment of segregation. For example, he criticized the report 

of the noted criminologist, Leonard Keeler, who had recently studied the 

criminal activities of American troops in Europe for the Army's Criminal Investigation Division. Ray was critical, not because Keeler had been particularly 

concerned with the relatively high black crime rate and its effect on Europeans, 

but because the report overlooked the concentration of segregated black units 

which had increased the density of Negroes in some areas of Europe to a point 

where records and reports of misconduct presented a false picture. In effect, 

black crime statistics were meaningless, Ray believed, as long as the Army's 

segregation policy remained intact. Where Keeler implied that the solution was 

to exclude Negroes from Europe, Ray believed that the answer lay in 

desegregating and spreading them out. 12 

It was probably inevitable that all the publicity given racial troubles would 

attract attention on Capitol Hill. When the Senate's Special Investigations 

Committee took up the question of military government in occupied Europe in 

the fall of 1946, it decided to look into the conduct of black soldiers also. 

Witnesses asserted that black troops in Europe were ill-behaved and poorly 

1

°Frank L. Stanley. Rcpon of the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association to the Honorable Secretary of 

War on Troops and Conditions in Europe. 18 Jul46. copy in CMH . 11Ray. Rpt of Tour of Pacific Installations to SW Patterson, 7 Aug-6 Scp 46. ASW 291.2. 12Memo, Ray for ASW Petersen. I Nov 46, ASW 291.2. 
212 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

disciplined and their officers were afraid to punish them properly for fear of 

displeasing higher authorities. The committee received a report on the occupation prepared by its chief counsel, George Meader. A curious amalgam of sensational hearsay, obvious racism, and unimpeachable fact, the document was 

leaked to the press and subsequently denounced publicly by the committee's 

chairman, Senator Harley M. Kilgore of West Virginia. Kilgore charged that 

pares of the report dealing with Negroes were obviously based on hearsay. 

"Neither prejudice nor malice," the senator concluded, "has any place in factual reports.'' 13 

Although the committee's staff certainly had displayed remarkable insensitivity, Meader's recommendations appeared temperate enough. He wanted 

the committee to explore with the War Department possible solutions to the 

problem of black troops overseas, and he called on the War Department to give 

careful consideration to the recommendations of its field commanders. The 

European commander was already on record with a recommendation to recall all 

black troops from Europe, citing the absence of Negroes from the U.S. Occupadon Army in the Rhineland after World War I. Lt. Gen . Lucius D. Clay, then 

U.S. Commander, Berlin, who later succeeded General McNarney as theater 

commander and military governor, wanted Negroes in the occupation army 

used primarily as parade troops. Meader contended that the War Department 

was reluctant to act on these theater recommendations because it feared political 

repercussions from the black community. He had no such fear: "certainly, the 

conduct of the negro troops, as provable from War Department records, is no 

credit to the negro race and proper action to solve the problem should not result 

in any unfavorable reaction from any intelligent negro leaders.'' 14 

The War Department was not insensitive to the opinions being aired on 

Capitol Hill. The under secretary, Kenneth C. Royall, had already dispatched a 

group from the Inspector General's office under Brig. Gen. Elliot D. Cooke to 

find out among other things if black troops were being properly disciplined and 

to investigate other charges Lt. Col. Francis P. Miller had made before the 

Special Investigations Committee. Examining in detail the records of one subordinate European command, which had 12,000 Negroes in its force of 44,000, 

the Cooke group decided that commanders were not afraid to punish black 

soldiers. Although Negroes were responsible for vehicle accidents and 

disciplinary infractions in numbers disproportionate co their Strength, they also 

had a proportionately higher court-martial rate. •~ 

While the Cooke group was still studying the specific charges of the Senate's 

Investigations Committee, Secretary Patterson decided on a general review of 

the situation. He ordered Ray to tour European installations and report on how 

t3u.S. Congress. Senate. Special Committee Investigating National Defense Programs. Pan 42, "Military 

Government in Germany," 80th Cong .. 22 November 1946, pp. 261~0-89: su also New York Times, 

November 27 and December 4, 1946. The quotadon is from the Times of November 27th. 14Senatc Special Comminee. "Military Government in Germany," 80th Cong .. 22 Nov 1946. pp. 

26163- 64; sec also Gcis Monograph. pp. 142-43. 

l)Gcis Monograph. pp. 144-4~; EUCOM Hist Div, Morale ami Disciplti1e i11the EuropeatJ Comma11d, 

I94J-I949, Occupation Forces in Europe Series. pp. 4~-46, in CMH. 
SEGREGATION'S CONSEQUENCES 213 

the Gillem Board policy was being put into effect overseas. Ray visited 

numerous bases and h0using and recreation areas in Germany, Italy, France, 

Switzerland, and Austria. He examined duties, living conditions, morale, and 

discipline. He also looked into race relations and community attitudes. His 

month's tour, ending on 17 December 1946, reinforced his conviction that 

substandard troops-black and white-were at the heart of the Army's crime 

and venereal disease problem. Ray supported the efforts of local commanders to 

discharge these men, although he wanted the secretary to reform and standardize the method of discharge. In his analysis of the overseas situation, the 

civilian aide avoided any specific allusion to the nexus between segregation and 

racial unrest. In a rare burst of idealism, however, he did condemn those who 

would exclude Negroes from combat units and certain occupations because of 

presumed prejudices on the part of the German population. To bow to such 

prejudices, he insisted, was to negate America's aspirations for the postwar 

world. In essence, Ray's formula for good race relations was quite simple: institute immediately the reforms outlined in the Gillem Board Report. 

In addition to broader use of black troops, Ray was concerned with basic 

racial attitudes. The Army, he charged, generally failed to see the connection 

between prejudice and national security; many of its leaders even denied rhat 

prejudice existed in the Army. Yet to ignore the problem of racial prejudice, he 

claimed, condemned the Army to perpetual racial upsets. He wanted the 

secretary to restate the Army's racial objectives and launch an information and 

education program to inform commanders and troops on racial matters. 16 

In all other respects a lucid progress report on the Gillem Board policy, Ray's 

analysis was weakened by his failure to point out the effect of segregation on the 

performance and attitude of black soldiers. Ray believed that the Gillem Board 

policy, with its quota system and its provisions for the integration of black 

specialists, would eventually lead to an integrated Army. Preoccupied with practical and imminently possible racial reforms, Ray, along with Secretary Patterson 

and other reformers within the Army establishment, tended to overlook the 

tenacious hold that racial segregation had on Army thought. 

This hold was clearly illustrated by the reaction of the Army staff co Ray's 

recommendations. Speaking with the concurrence of the ocher staff elements 

and the approval of the Deputy Chief of Staff, General Paul warned chat very 

little could be accomplished toward the long-range objective of the Gillem 

Board-integration-until the Army completed the long and complex task of 

raising the quality and lowering the quantity of black soldiers. He also considered it impractical to use Negroes in overhead positions, combat units, and 

highly technical and professional positions in exact proportion to their percentage of the population. Such use, Paul claimed, would expend travel funds 

already drastically curtailed and further complicate a serious housing situation. 

He admitted that the deep-seated prejudice of some Army members in all 

16Ray, "Rpt to Sec War. Mr. Robert P. Patterson. of Tour of European Installations,'' 17 Dec 46, Inc! to 

Memo. SW for DCofS, 7 }an 47. SW 291.2 . 
214 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

24TH INFANTRY BAND, GIFU, JAPAN, 1947 

grades would have a direct bearing on the progress of the Army's new racial 

policy. 

The staff generally agreed with Ray's other recommendations with one exception: it opposed his suggestion that black units be used in the European 

cheater's constabulary, the specially organized and trained force that patrolled 

the Ease-West border and helped police the German occupation. The theater 

commander had so few capable Negroes, Paul reasoned, chat co siphon off 

enough to form a constabulary unit would threaten the efficiency of other black 

units. Besides, even if enough qualified Negroes were available, he believed 

their use in supervisory positions over German nationals would be unacceptable 

to many Germans. 17 The staff offered no evidence for this latter argument, and 

indeed there was none available. In marked contrast co their reaction co the 

French government's quartering of Senegalese soldiers in the Rhineland after 

World War I, the German attitude coward American Negroes immediately after 

World War II was notably tolerant, a factor in the popularity among Negroes of 

assignments to Europe. It was only later that the Germans, especially tavern 

17WDGPA Summary Sheet, 25 Jan 47. sub: Utilization of Negroes in the European Theater, with !nels, 

WDGPA 291.2 (7 Jan 47). 
SEGREGATION'S CONSEQUENCES 215 

owners and the like, began to adopt the discriminatory practices of their conquerors.18 

Ray's proposals and the reaction to them formed a kind of watershed in the 

War Department's postwar racial policy. Just ten months after the Gillem Board 

Report was published, the Army staff made a judgment on the policy's effectiveness: the presence of Negroes in numbers approximating 10 percent of the 

Army's strength and at the current qualitative level made it necessary. to retain 

segregation indefinitely. Segregation kept possible troublemakers out of important combat divisions, promoted efficiency, and placated regional prejudices 

both in the Army and Congress. Integration must be postponed until the 

number of Negroes in the Army was carefully regulated and the quality of black 

troops improved. Both, the staff thought, were goals of a future so distant that 

segregated units were not threatened. 

But the staff's views ran contrary to the Gillem Board policy and the public 

utterances of the Secretary of War. Robert Patterson had consistently supported 

the policy in public and before his advisers. Besides, it was unthinkable that he 

would so quickly abandon a policy developed at the cost of so much effort and 

negotiation and announced with such fanfare. He had insisted that the quota be 

maintained, most recently in the case of the European Command .19 In sum, he 

believed that the policy provided guidelines, practical and expedient, albeit 

temporary, that would lead to the integration of the Army. 

In face of this impasse between the secretary and the Army staff there slowly 

evolved what proved to be a new racial policy. Never clearly formulated-Circular 124 continued in effect with only minor changes until 1950-the new 

policy was based on the substantially different proposition that segregation 

would continue indefinitely while the staff concentrated on weeding out poorly 

qualified Negroes, upgrading the rest, and removing vestiges of discrimination, 

which it saw as quite distinct from segregation. At the same time the Army 

would continue to operate under a strict 10 percent quota of Negroes, though 

not necessarily within every occupation or specialty. The staff overlooked the increasingly evident connection between segregation and racial unrest, thereby 

assuring the continuation of both. From 1947 on, integration, the stated goal of 

the Gillem Board policy, was ignored, while segregation, which the board saw as 

an expedient to be tolerated, became for the Army staff a way of life to be 

treasured. It was from this period in 1947 that Circular 124 and the Gillem 

Board Report began to gain their reputations as regressive documents. 

Improving the Status of the Segregated Soldier 

In 1947 the Army accelerated its long-range program to discharge soldiers 

who scored less than seventy on the Army General Classification Test. Often a 

subject of public controversy, the program formed a major part of the Army's 

18Intcrv. author with Lt Gen Clarence R. Huebner (former CG. U.S. Army. Europe), 31 Mar 71, CMH 

files. 1

9Gcis Monograph, pp. 143-44. 
216 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

GENERAL HUEBNER inspects the 529th 

Military Police Company, Giessen, 

Germany, 1948. 

effort to close the educational and training gap between black and white 

troops. 20 Of course. there were other 

ways to close the gap, and on occasion 

the Army had taken the more positive 

and difficult approach of upgrading its 

substandard black troops by giving 

them extra training. Although rarely so 

recognized, the Army's long record of 

providing remedial academic and 

technical training easily qualified it as 

one of the nation's major social 

engineers. 

In World War II thousands of 

draftees were taught to read and write 

in the Army's literacy program. In 1946 

at Fort Benning an on-duty educational 

program was organized in the 25th 

Regimental Combat Team for soldiers, 

in this case all Negroes, with less than 

an eighth grade education. Although 

the project had co be curtailed because 

of a lack of specialized instructors, an even more ambitious program was launched the next year throughout the Army after a survey revealed an alarming illiteracy rate in replacement troops. In a move of primary importance to black 

recru its, the Far East Command, for example, ordered all soldiers lacking the 

equivalent of a fifth grade education to attend courses. The order was Iacer 

changed to include all soldiers who failed to achieve Army test scores of 

seventy. 21 

In 1947 the European theater launched the most ambitious project by far for 

improving the status of black troops, and before it was over thousands of black 

soldiers had been examined, counseled, and trained. The project was conceived 

and executed by the deputy and later theater commander, Lt. Gen. Clarence R. 

Huebner, and his adviser on Negro affairs, Marcus Ray, now a lieutenant colonel. 

22 These men were convinced that a p rogram could be devised to raise the 

status of the black soldier. Huebner wanted to lay the foundation for a 

command-wide educational program for all black units. "If you're going to 

make soldiers out of people," he later expla'ined, "they have the right to be 

trained." Huebner had specialized in training in his Army career. had written 

several of the Army's training manuals, and possessed an abiding faith in the 

2

°For the usc of AR 315-369 tO discharge low-scoring soldiers. see Chapter 7. 21 AFPAC Monograph, 4:193. 22At the suggestion of Secretary Patterson. General Huebner established the position of Negro adviser. 

After several candidates were considered, the post went co Marcus Ray. who left the secretary's office and went 

on active duty. 
SEGREGATION'S CONSEQUENCES 217 

ability of the Army to change men. "If your soldiers don't know how, teach 

them. " 23 

General Huebner got his chance in March 1947 when the command decided 

to use some 3, 000 unassigned black troops in guard duties formerly performed 

by the 1st Infantry Division. The men were organized into two infantry battalions,24 but because of their low test scores Huebner decided to establish a 

twelve- to thirteen-week training program at the Grafenwohr Training Center 

and directed the commanding general of the 1st Division to train black soldiers 

in both basic military and academic subjects. Huebner concluded his directive 

by saying:· 

This is our first opportunity to puc into effect in a large way the War Department policy 

on Negro soldiers as announced in War Department Circular No. 124, 1946. Owing to 

the necessity for rapid training, and to the press of occupational duties, little time has 

been available in the past for developing the leadership of the Negro soldier. We can 

now do that .... I wish you to study the program, its progress, its deficiencies and its 

advantages, in order that a full report may be compiled and lessons in operation and 

training drawn. 25 

As the improved military bearing and efficiency of black trainees and the 

subsequent impressive performance of the two new infantry battalions would 

suggest, the reports on the Grafenwohr training were optimistic and the lessons 

drawn ambitious. They prompted Huebner on 1 December 1947 to establish a 

permanent training center at Kitzingen Air Base. 26 Essentially, he was trying to 

combine both drill and constant supervision with a broad-based educational 

program. Trainees received basic military training for six hours daily and 

academic instruction up to the twelfth grade level for two hours more . The command ordered all black replacements and casuals arriving from the United States 

to the training center for classifying and training as required. Eventually all 

black units in Europe were to be rotated through Kitzingen for unit refresher 

and individual instruction. As each company completed the course at Kitzingen, the command assigned academic instructors to continue an on-duty 

educational program in the field. A soldier was required to participate in the 

educational program until he passed the general education development test for 

high school level or until he clearly demonstrated that he could not profit from 

further instruction. 

Washington was quick to perceive the merit of the European program, and 

Paul reported widespread approval "from all concerned. " 27 The program 

23Jmcrv, author with Huebner. 24The 3 70th and 3 71st Infantry Banali.ons (Separate) were organized on 20 June 1947. The men came from 

EUCOM's inactivated engineer service battalions and construction companies. ambulance companies. and 

ordnance ammunition. quartermaster railhead. signal heavy construction. and transportation corps car companics; sec Gcis Monograph, p. 80. 25Ltr. CG. Ground and Service Forces. Europe, ro CG. 1st Jnf Div, I May 47, sub: Training of Negro lnfamrl Battalions. quoted in Geis Monograph. pp. 113-14. 2 The training center had already moved from Grafcnwohr to larger quarters at Mannheim Koafcstal, German~. 

2 Ltr, D/P&A to Huebner, I) Oct 47, CSGPA 291.2. This approval did not extend to all civil rights advocates, some of whom objected to the segregated training. Walter White, however, supported the program. 

Sec lntcrv, au.thor with Huebner. 
218 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

REPORTING TO KITZINGEN. Men of Company B, 37lst Infantry Battalion, arrive for 

refresher course in basic mtlitary training. 

quickly produced some impressive statistics. Thousands of soldiers-at the peak 

in 1950 more than 62 percent of all Negroes in the command-were enrolled in 

the military training course at Kitzingen or in on-duty educational programs 

organized in over two-thirds of the black companies throughout the command. 

By June 1950 the program had over 2,900 students and 200 instructors. A year 

later, the European commander estimated that since the program began some 

1,169 Negroes had completed fifth grade in his schools, 2, 150 had finished 

grade school, and 418 had passed the high school equivalency test. 28 The experiment had a practical and long-lasting effect on the Army. For example, in 1950 

a sampling of three black units showed that after undergoing training at Kitzingen and in their own units the men scored an average of twenty points higher 

in Army classification tests. According to a 1950 European Command estimate, 

the command's education program was producing some of the finest trained 

black troops in the Army. 

The training program even provoked jealous reaction among some white 

troops who claimed that the educational opportunities offered Negroes 

discriminated against them. They were right, for in comparison to the on-duty 

high school courses offered Negroes, the command restricted courses for white 

soldiers to so-called literacy training or completion of the fifth grade. Command 

spokesmen quite openly justified the disparity on the grounds that Negroes on 
SEGREGATION'S CONSEQUENCES 219 

the whole had received fewer educational opportunities in the United States and 

that the program would promote efficiency in the command. 2

" 

Whether a connection can be made between the Kitzingen training program 

and improvement in the morale and discipline of black troops, the fact was that 

by January 1950 a dramatic change had occurred in the conduct of black soldiers 

in the European Command. The rate of venereal disease among black soldiers 

had dropped to an average approximating the rate for white troops (and not 

much greater than the always lower average for troops in the Un ited States). 

This phenomenon was repeated in the serious incident rate. In rhe first half of 

1950 courts-martial that resulted in bad conduct discharges totaled fifty-nine for 

Negroes, a figure that compared well with the 324 similar verdicts for the larger 

contingent of white soldiers. 3° For once the Army could document what it had 

always preached, that education and training were the keys to the better performance of black troops. The tragedy was that the education program was never 

applied throughout the Army, not even in the Far East and in the United States, 

where far more black soldiers were stationed than in Europe. 31 The Army lost yet 

another chance to fulfill the promise of its postwar policy. 

In later years Kitzingen assumed the task of training black officers, a natural 

progression considering the attitude of General Huebner and Marcus Ray. The 

general and the command adviser were convinced that the status of black 

soldiers depended at least in part on the caliber of black officers commanding 

them. Huebner deftly made this point in October 1947 soon after Kitzingen 

opened when he explained to General Paul that he wanted more "stable, efficient, and interested Negro officers and senior non-commissioned officers'' 

who, he believed, would set an example for the trainees. 32 Others shared 

Huebner's views. The black publishers touring Europe some months later 

observed that wherever black officers were assigned there was "a noticeable improvement in the morale, discipline and general efficiency of the units involved. '' 33 

The European Command had requisitioned only five black officers during 

the last eight months, General Paul noted; this might have caused its shortage 

of black officers. Still, Paul knew the problem went deeper, and he admitted 

that many black officers now on duty were relatively undesirable and many 

desirable ones were being declared surplus. He was searching for a solurionY 

The Personnel and Administration Division could do very little about the major 

cause of the shortage, for the lack of black officers was fundamentally connected 

with the postwar demobilization affecting all the services. Most black officers 

were unable to compete in terms of length of service, combat experience, and 

28EUCOM Hist Oiv. EUCOM Command Report, 1951, pp. 128, 251. copy in CMH. 29Ltr, Chief, EUCOM TI&E Oiv, to EUCOM OCSOPS, 18 Jun 48, cited in Gcis Monograph, p. 130. 

3°Geis Monograph , Chans 3 and 4 and p. 139. 31 Not comparable was the brief literacy program reinstituted in the 25th Regimental Combat Team at Fort 

Benning, Georgia, in 1947. 

32Ltr. Huebner to 0/P&A. I Oct 47. CSGPA 291.2. 

33Mcmo, DCofS for 0/P&A. 14 May 48. sub: Report of Visit by Negro Publishers and Editors to the Euro· 

pean Theater, CSUSA 291 .2 Negroes (14 May 48). 

Hltr. D/P&A to Huebner. 15 Oct 47. CSGPA 291.2. 
220 INTEGRATION OFTI-IE ARMED FORCES, 1940- 1965 

other factors that counced heavily coward retention. Consequently their 

numbers dropped sharply from an August 1945 high of 7,718 to a December 

1947 low of 1,184. The drop more chan offset the slight rise in the black 

percentage of the whole officer corps, .8 percent in 1945 to 1.0 percent in 1947. 

At first General Paul was rather passive in his attitude toward the shortage of 

black officers. Commenting on Assistant Secretary of War Petersen's suggestion 

in May 1946 that the Army institute a special recruitment program to supplement the small number of black officers who survived the competition for 

Regular Army appointments, Paul noted chat all appointmenrs were based on 

merit and competition and chat special consideration for Negroes was itself a 

form of discrimination. }~ Whether through fear of being accused of discrimination against whites or because of the general curtailment of officer billets, it was 

not until April 1948 that the Personnel and Administration Division launched a 

major effort to get more black officers. 

In April 1948 General Paul had his Manpower Control Group review the officer screngch of seventy-eight black units stationed in the United States. The 

group uncovered a shortage of seventy-two officers in the seventy-eight units, 

but it went considerably beyond identifying simple shortages. In estimating the 

number of black officers needed, the group demonstrated not only how far the 

Gillem Board policy had committed the Army, but in view of contemporary 

manpower shortages just how impossible this commitment was of being fulfilled. The manpower group discovered that according co Circular 124, which 

prescribed more officers for units containing a preponderance of men with low 

test scores, the seventy-eight units should have 187 additional officers beyond 

their regular allotment. Also taking into account Circular 124 's provision that 

black officers should command black troops, the group discovered chat these 

units would need another 4 77 black officer replacements. The group temporized. It recommended chat the additional officers be assigned to units in which 

70 percent or more of the men were in grades IV and V and without mentioning 

specific numbers noted that high priority be given to the replacement of white 

officers with Negroes. Assuming the shortages discovered in the seventy-eight 

units would be mirrored in the 315 black units overseas as well as other temporary units at home, the group also wanted General Paul to order a comprehensive survey of all black units. }

6 

Paul complied with the group's request by ordering the major commanders 

in May to list the number of officers by branch, grade , and specialty needed to 

fill the vacant spaces in their black unitsY But there was really little need for 

}~ Memo, ASW for 0/ P&A . 23 May ~6. sub: Negro Officers in the Regular Establishment; Memo. 0/P&A 

for ASW. 29 May 46, same sub; Memo. "D. R." (Exec ASSt tO ASW. Lt Col D. J. Rogers) for Petersen. 12 jun 

46. Copies of all in ASW 291.2 (23 May 46). 

J

6Mcmo. Chief. Manpower Survey Gp. for Paul. 29 Apr 48. sub: Assignment of Officers of Negro T /O&E 

Units in Compliance with WD Cir 124. 1946. CSGPA 210.3 1 (29 Apr48); ' 'Report on Negro Officer Strength 

in Army," incl w/Mcmo. DIP& A for DCofS. 21 Jun 48. sub: Report of Negro Publishers and Editors on Tour 

of European Installations. CSUSA 291.2 Negroes ( 14 May 48). 

HMemo, DIP& A for TAG. 24 May 48. sub: Negro Officers in TO&E Units. CSGPA 29 1.2 (24 May 48). 
SEGREGATION'S CONSEQUENCES 221 

further surveys because the key to alJ the group's recommendatio!ls-the 

availability of suitable black officers-was beyond the immediate reach of the 

Army. General Paul was able to fill the existing vacancies in the seventy-eight 

continental units by recalling black officers from inactive duty, but the number 

eligible for recall or available from other sources was limited. As of 31 · May 

1948, personnel officials could count on only 2, 794 black reserve and National 

Guard officers who could be assigned to extended active duty. This number was 

far short of current needs; Negroes would have to approximate 4.1 percent 

(3,000 officers) of the Army's officer corps if all the whites in black units were 

replaced. As for the other provisions of the Gillem Board, the Organization and 

Training Division urged restraint, arguing that Circular 124 was not an 

authorization for officers in excess of organization table ceilings, but rather that 

the presence of many low-scoring men constituted a basis for requesting more 

officers. 38 

General Paul did not argue the point. Admitting that the 4.1 percent figure 

was "an objective to be achieved over a period of time," he could do little but 

instruct the commanders concerned to indicate in future requisitions that they 

wanted black officers as fillers or replacements in black units. Clearly, as long as 

the number of black officers remained so low, the provisions of Circular 124 calling for black officers to replace whites or supplement the officer strength of 

units containing men with low test scores would have to be ignored. 

There were other long-range possibilities for procuring more black officers, 

the most obvious the expansion of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. As of 

January 1948 the Army had ROTC units at nine predominantly black colleges 

and universities with a total enrollment of 3,035 cadets. The Organization and 

Training Division contemplated adding one more unit during 1948, but after 

negotiations with officials from Secretary Royall's office, themselves under considerable congressional and public pressure, the division added three more advanced ROTC units, one service and two combat, at predominantly black institutions. 9 At the same time some hope existed for increasing the number of 

black cadets at West Point. The academy had nine black cadets in 1948, including five plebes. General Paul hoped that the graduation of these cadets 

would stimulate further interest and a corresponding increase in applications 

from Negroes.40 

It was probably naive to assume that an increase of black cadets from four to 

nine would stir much interest when other statistics suggested that black officers 

had a limited future in the service. As Secretary Royall pointed out, even if the 

total number of black officers could not be quickly increased, the percentage of 

381bid.: ''Report on Negro Officer Strength in Army.·· incl w/Mcmo, D/P&A for DCofS. 21 jun 48, sub: 

Repon of Negro Publishers and Editors .. . . CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (14 May 48). 3'>Memo, Am Secy. GS, for DCofS. 2 Jun 48. sub: Negro ROTC Units. CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (2 Jun 48): 

see also Department of National Defense. "National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs," 26 Apr 48. 

morning session. pp. 31·-34. copy in CMH. 40" Rcpon on Negro Officer Strengrh in Army, " incl w/Memo. DIP& A for DCof$, 21 Jun 48. sub: 

Report of Negro Publishers and Editors .... CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (14 May 48). 
222 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

black officers in the Regular Army could.

41 Yet by April 1948 the Army had 

almost completed the conversion of reservists into regulars, a'nd few black officers had been selected. In June 1945, for example, there were 8 black officers 

in the Regular Army; by April 1948 they numbered only 41, including 4 West 

Point graduates and 32 converted reservists. 42 The Army had also recently 

nominated 13 young Negroes, designated Distinguished Military Graduates of 

the advanced ROTC program, for Regular Army commissions. 

During the Regular Army integration program, 927 Negroes and 122,520 

whites applied for the Regular Army; the Army and the Air Force awarded commissions to 27,798 white officers (22. 7 percent of those applying) and 96 black 

officers (10.3 percent of the applicants). Preliminary rejections based on efficiency and education ran close to 40 percent of the applicants of both races. The 

disparity in rejections by race appeared when applicants went before the Selection Board itself; only 18.5 5 percent of the remaining black applicants were accepted while 39.3 5 percent of the white applicants were selected for Regular 

Army commissions.

4

3 

Given statistics like these, it was difficult to stimulate black interest in a 

career as an Army officer, as General Paul was well aware. He had the distribution of black officers appointed to the Regular Army studied in 1947 to see if it 

was in consonance with the new racial policy. While most of the arms and services passed muster with the Personnel and Administration Division, Paul fe lt 

compelled to remind the Chief of Engineers, whose corps had so far awarded no 

Regular Army commission to the admittedly limited number of black applicants, that officers were to be accepted in the Regular Army without regard to 

race. He repeated this warning to the Quartermaster General and the Chief of 

Transportation; both had accepted black officers for the Regular Army but had 

selected only the smallest fraction of those applying. Although the black applicants did score slightly below the whites, Paul doubted that integration 

would lower the standards of quality in these branches, and he wanted every effort made to increase the number of black officers.44 

The Chief of Engineers, quick to defend his record, explained that the race 

of candidates was difficult to ascertain and had not been considered in the selection process. Nevertheless, he had reexamined all rejected applications and 

41Dcpanrncm of National Defense, "National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs." 26 Apr 48, morn· 

ing session, pp. 20-21. Prior to World War II. an officer held a commission in the Regular Army, in the Army 

Reserve. or in the Narional Guard. Another type of commission. one in the Army of the United States (AUS). 

was added during World War II. and all temporary promotions granted during the war were to AU$ rank. For 

example. a Regular Army captain could become an AUS major but would retain his Regular Army captaincy. 

Many reservists and some National Guard officers remaining on active duty sought conversion to, or "integra· 

lion" into, the Regular Army for career security. 42Thesc black officers were convened to Regular Army officers in the following arms and services: Infantry, 

13: Chaplain Corps, 9: Medical Service Corps, I: Army Nurse Corps. I: Field Artillery. I: Quartermaster, 7 (4 

of whom were transferred later to rhc Transportation Corps). These figures include the firsr black doctOr and 

nurse convened to Regular Army officers. 43•• Analysis of Negro OFficers in rhe Army,'' incl w/Mcmo. DIP& A for DCAS, 21 jun 48, sub: Report of 

Negro Publishers and Editors ... . CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (14 May 48). 44DF. D/P&A to Chief of Engrs. 25 Jul 47. sub: Appointment of Negro Officers to the Regular Army, 

w/anached Memo for Red, \XIDGPA 291.2 (23 jul47). 
SEGREGATION'S CONSEQUENCES 223 

found two from Negroes whose composite scores were acceptable. Both men, 

however, fell so short of meeting the minimum professional requirements that 

to appoint either would be to accord preferential treatment denied to hundreds 

of other underqualified applicants. ~ It would appear that bias and prejudice 

were not the only governing factors in the shortage of black officers, but rather 

that in some ways at least Circular 124 was making impossible demands on the 

Army's personnel system. 

Discrimination and the Postwar Army 

Training black soldiers and trying to provide them with black officers was a 

practical move demanded by the Army's new race policy. At the same time, 

often with reluctance and only after considerable pressure had been brought to 

bear, the Army also began to attack certain practices that discriminated against 

the black soldier. One was the arbitrary location of training camps after the war. 

In November 1946, for example, the Army Ground Forces reorganized its training centers for the Army, placing them at six installations: Fort Dix, New Jersey; 

Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Knox, Kentucky; Fort Jackson, South 

Carolina; Fort Lewis, Washington, and Fort Ord, California. White enlisted and 

reenlisted men were sent to the training centers within the geographical limits of 

the Army area of their enlistment. Because it was impossible for the Army 

Ground Forces to maintain separate black training cadres of battalion size at 

each of the six centers, all Negroes, except those slated for service in the Army 

Air Forces, were sent to Fort Jackson.46 

The Gillem Board had called for the assignment of Negroes to localities 

where community attitudes were favorable. and Marcus Ray protested the 

Ground Forces action. "It is in effect a restatement of policy and ... has implications which will affect adversely the relationship of the Army and our 

Negro manpower potential. ... I am certain that this ruling will have the immediate effect of crystallizing Negro objections to the enlistment of qualified 

men and also Universal Military Training. " 47 

Ray reminded Assistant Secretary of War Petersen that the Fort Jackson area 

had been the scene of many racial disturbances since 1941 and that an increase 

in the black troop population would only intensify the hostile community attitude. He wanted to substitute Fort Dix and Fort Ord for Fort Jackson. He also 

had another suggestion: Why not assign black training companies to white battalions, especially in those training centers that drew their populations from northern, eastern, and western communities? 

Petersen ignored for the time being Ray's suggestion for composite training 

groups, but he readily agreed on training black soldiers at more congenial posts, 

particularly after Ray's views were aired in the black press. Petersen also urged 

DF, Chief of Engrs to D/ P&A, I Aug 47. sub: Appointment of Negro Officers to the Regular Army, 

copx in WPGPA 29 1.2 (23 Jul 47). 

WD Memo 615-500-4. 21 Nov 46. sub: Flow of Enlisted Personnel From Induction Centers and Cen· 

tral Examining Stations. 47Memo, Marcus Ray for ASW, 23 Jan 47, ASW 291.2. 
224 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

the Deputy Chief of Staff to coordinate staff actions with Ray whenever instructions dealing with race relations in the Army were being prepared. 48 At the same 

time, Secretary of War Patterson assured Walter White of the NAACP, who had 

also protested sending Negroes to Fort Jackson, that the matter was under 

study.49 Within a matter of months Negroes entering the Army from civilian life 

were receiving their training at Fort Dix and Fort Ord. 

Turning its back on the overt racism of some southern communities, the 

Army unwittingly exposed an example of racism in the west. The plan to train 

Negroes at Fort Ord aroused the combined opposition of the citizens around 

Monterey Bay, who complained to Senator William F. Knowland that theirs was 

a tourist area unable to absorb thousands of black trainees ''without serious 

threat of racial conflict." The Army reacted with forthright resistance. Negroes 

would be trained at Fort Ord, and the Secretary of the Army would be glad to 

explain the situation and cooperate with the local citizenry. )O 

On the recommendation of the civilian aide, the Assistant Secretary of War 

introduced another racial reform in January 1947 that removed racial designations from overseas travel orders and authorizations issued to dependents and 

War Department civilian employees. H The order was strongly opposed by some 

members of the Army staff and had to be repeated by the Secretary of the Army 

in 1951. H Branding racial designations on travel orders a "continuous source of 

embarrassment" to the Army, Secretary Frank Pace, Jr., sought to incude all 

travel orders in the prohibition, but the Army staff persuaded him it was unwise. While the staff agreed that orders involving travel between reception 

centers and training organizations need not designate race, it convinced the 

secretary that to abolish such designations on other orders, including overseas 

assignment documents, would adversely affect strength and accounting procedures as well as overseas replacement systems. H The modest reform continued 

in effect until the question of racial designation became a major issue in the 

1960's. 

Not all the reforms that followed the Gillem Board's deliberations were so 

quickly adopted . For in truth the Army was not the monolithic institution so 

often depicted by its critics, and its racial directives usually came out of compromises between the progressive and traditional factions of the staff. The integration of the national cemeteries, an emotion-laden issue in 1947. amply 

demonstrated that sharp differences of opinion existed within the department. 

Although long-standing regulations provided for segregation by rank only, local 

custom, and in one case- the Long Island National Cemetery-a 1935 order by 

48Memo. ASW for DCofS, 7 Fcb47, ASW 291.2. 49Ltr, SW Robert P. Pamrson to Walter White. 7 Feb47. SW 291.2. 

)OJ'clg. Hugh F. Dormody, Mayor of Monterey. Calif.. ct al.. to Sen. William F. Knowland, 31 Jul 48: ltr, 

SA co Sen. Knowland, 16 May 48: both in CSUSA 29 1. 2 Negroes ( 10 Aug 48). 

)lAG Memo for Office of SW ct al., 10 Jan 47, sub: Designation of Race on Overseas Travel Orders, 

AGAO·C 291.2 (6 Jan 47), WDGSP: Memo for Red attached to Memo. D/SSP for TAG. 6 Jan 47. same sub. 

AG 291.2 (6 Jan 47). 

) 2Mcmo. SA for CofSA. 2 Apr ~2. sub: Racial Designations on Travel Orders. CS 291.2 (2 Apr 51). 

HG-1 Summary Sheet, 26 Apr ~2. sub: Racial Designations on Travel Orders; Memo. CofS for SA. 5 May 

51, same sub; both in CS 291.2 (2 Apr 51). 
SEGREGATION'S CONSEQUENCES 225 

Secretary of War George H. Dern, dictated racial segregation in most of the 

cemeteries. The Quartermaster General reviewed the practice in 1946 and 

recommended a new policy specifically opening new sections of all national 

cemeteries to eligible citizens of all races. He would leave undisturbed 

segregated grave sites in the older sections of the cemeteries because integration 

would ''constitute a breach of faith with the next of kin of those now 

interred.")4 As might be expected, General Paul supported the quartermaster 

suggestion, as did the commander of the Army Ground Forces. The Army Air 

Forces commander, on the other hand , opposed integrating the cemeteries, as 

did the Chief of Staff, who on 22 February 1947 rejected the proposal. The existing policy was reconfirmed by the Under Secretary of War three days later, 

and there the matter rested. )) 

Not for long, for civil rights spokesmen and the black press soon protested. 

The NAACP confessed itself "astonished" at the Army's decision and demanded that Secretary Patterson change a practice that was both "un-American 

and un-democratic. ")6 Marcus Ray predicted that continuing agitation would 

require further Army action, and he reminded Under Secretary Royall that 

cemeteries under the jurisdiction of the Navy, Veterans Administration, and 

Department of the Interior had been integrated with considerable publicity. He 

urged adoption of the Quartermaster General's recommendation. H That was 

enough for Secretary Patterson. On 15 April he directed that the new sections of 

national cemeteries be integrated. )S 

It was a hollow victory for the reformers because the traditionalists were able 

to cling to the secretary's proviso that old sections of the cemeteries be left 

alone, and the Army continued to gather its dead in segregation and in bitter 

criticism. Five months after the secretary's directive , the American Legion prorested to the Secretary of War over segregation at the Fort Snelling National 

Cemetery, Minnesota , and in August 1950 the Governor's Interracial Commission of the State of Minnesota carried the matter ro the President, calling the 

policy "a flagrant disregard of human dignity. ")9 The Army cominued to 

justify segregation as a temporary and limited measure involving the old sections, but a decade after the directive the commander of the Atlanta Depot was 

still referring to segregation in some cemeteries.60 The controversial practice 

would drag on imo the next decade before the Department of Defense finally 

ru led that there would be no lines drawn by rank or race in national cemeteries. 

HMemo, QMG forDCofS. 15 Apr ~7. CSUSA. copy in CMH. 

n wosP Summary Sheet, 22 Jan . sub: Staff Swdy-Scgrcgation of Grave Sites. \XIDGSP/C3 1894. 

~6TcJg. Sccy Veterans Affairs. NAACP. tO S\XI. attached to Memo. $\XI for DCofS. II Apr 47. copy in 

CMH. 

HMcmo. Civilian Aide for US \XI, 15 Mar 47. sub: Segregation in Grave Site Assignment, cop)' in CMH. 

Mcmo. S\XI for DCofS. 15 Apr 47. copy in CMH. The secretary's directive was incorporated in the 

National Cemetery Regulations, August 1947. and Army Regulation 290-5. 2 October 1951. 

~9Ltr, Royall to Rep. Edward J. Devitt of Minnesota, 4 Scp 47: Ltr. Clifford Rucker tO the President, 9 Aug 

50: both in S\XI 291.2. 

60Ltr. CG. Atlanta Depot, to DQMG. 19 Mar 56. MGME-P. Sec also Memo. ASA (M&Rf) for CofS. 27 

Scp 52. sub: Segregation of National Cemeteries: DF. QMF to G-4. 6 Oct 52. same sub; both in CS 687 (27 

Sep 52). 
226 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

An attempt to educate the rank and file in the Army's racial policy met some 

opposition in the Army staff. At General Paul's request, the Information and 

Education Division prepared a pamphlet intended co improve race relations 

through troop indoctrination.61 Army Talk 170, published on 1 April 1947, 

was, like its World War II predecessors, Command of Negro Troops and The 

Negro Soldier, progressive for the times. While it stressed the reforms projected 

in the Army's policy, including eventual integration, it also clearly defended the 

Army's continued insistence on segregation on the grounds that segregation 

promoted interracial harmony. The official position of the service was baldly 

stated. "The Army is nor an instrument of social reform. Its interest in matters 

of race is confined to considerations of its own effectiveness.'' 

Even before publication the pamphlet provoked considerable discussion and 

soul-searching in the Army staff. The Deputy Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Thomas 

T. Handy, questioned some of the Information and Education Division's claims 

for black combatants. In the end the matter had to be taken to General 

Eisenhower for resolution. He ordered publication, reminding local commanders that if necessary they should add further instructions of their own, " in 

keeping with the local situation" to insure acceptance of the Army's policy. The 

pamphlet was not co be considered an end in itself, he added, but only one element in a ''progressive process toward maximum utilization of manpower in the 

Army.''62 

Segregation in Theory and Practice 

Efforts to carry out the policy set forth in Circular 124 reached a high-water 

mark in mid-1948. By then black troops, for so long limited to a few job 

categories, could be found in a majority of military occupational fields. The officer corps was open to all without the restrictions of a racial quota, and while a 

quota for enlisted men still existed all racial distinctions in standards of enlistment were gone. The Army was replacing white officers in black units with 

Negroes as fast as qualified black replacements became available. And more 

were qualifying every day. By 30 June 1948 the Army had almost 1,000 black 

commissioned officers, 5 warrant officers, and 67 nurses serving with over 

65,000 enlisted men and women.63 

But here, in the eyes of the Army's critics, was the rub: after three years of 

racial reform segregation not only remained but had been perfected. No longer 

would the Army be plagued with the vast all-black divisions that had segregated 

thousands of Negroes in an admittedly inefficient and often embarrassing manner. Instead, Negroes would be segregated in more easily managed hundreds. 

61Memo. DIP&A for Co£$. 26 Feb 47, sub: Army Talks on "Utilization of Negro Manpower," WDGPA 

291.2 (7 Jan 4 7). 62WD Cir 76, 22 Mar 47; sec also Ltrs. Col David Lane (author of Army Talk 170) to Martin Blumenson. 

29 Dec 66. and to author. 15 Mar 71, CMH files. 

6lSTM-30. Strength o£ the Army. I Jul 48. For an optimistic report on the execution of Circular 124, sec 

Annual Report of the Secretary of the Army, 1948 (Washington: Government Printing Office. 1949). pp. 

7-8.83. 94. 
SEGREGATION'S CONSEQUENCES 227 

By limiting integration to the battalion level (the lowest self-sustaining unit in 

the Army system), the Army could guarantee the separation of the races in 

eating, sleeping, and general social matters and still hope to escape some of the 

obvious discrimination of separate units by making the black battalions organic 

elements of larger white units. The Army's scheme did not work. Schooling and 

specialty occupations aside, segregation quite obviously remained the essential 

fact of military life and social intercourse for the majority of black soldiers, and 

all the evidence of reasonable and genuine reform that came about under the 

Gillem Board policy went aglimmering. The Army was in for some rough years 

with its critics. 

But why were the Army's senior officers, experienced leaders at the pinnacle 

of their careers and dedicated to the well-being of the institution they served, so 

reluctant to part with segregation? Why did they cling to an institution abandoned by the Navy and the Ait Force, 64 the target of the civil rights movement 

and its allies in Congress, and by any reasonable judgment so costly in terms of 

efficient organization? The answers lie in the reasoned defense of their position 

developed by these men during the long controversy over the use of black troops 

and so often presented in public statements and documents. 65 Arguments for 

continued segregation fe ll into four general categories. 

First, segregation was necessary to preserve the internal stability of the Army. 

Prejudice was a condition of American society, General of the Army Dwight D. 

Eisenhower cold a Senate committee in 1948, and the Army " is merely one of 

the mirrors that holds up to our faces the United States of America.'' Since 

society separated the races, it followed that if the Army allowed black and white 

soldiers to Jive and socialize together it ran the very real risk of riots and racial 

disturbances which could disrupt its vital functions. Remembering the contribution of black platoons to the war in Europe, General Eisenhower, for his part, 

was willing to accept the risk and integrate the races by platoons, believing that 

the social problems "can be handled," particularly on the large posts. Nevertheless he made no move toward integrating by platoons while he was Chief of 

Staff. Later he explained that 

the possibility of applying this lesson (World War II integration of Negro plaroons] to 

the peacetime Army came up again and again. Objection involved primarily the social 

side of the soldier's life. It was argued that through integration we would get into all 

kinds of difficulty in staging soldiers' dances and other social events. At that time we 

were primarily occupied in responding to America's determination "to get the soldiers 

home'' -so, as I recall, little progress toward integration was made during that periqd. 66 

64The Air Force became a separate service on 18 September 1947. 65Unless otherwise noted, the following paragraphs arc based on Nichols' interviews in 1953 with Generals 

Eisenhower. Bradley. and Lee and with Lt. Col. Steve Davis (a black officer assigned to the P&A Division during the Gillem Board period); author's interview with General Wade H. Haislip. 18 Mar 71. and with General 

}. Lawton Collins. 27 Apr 71; all in CMH files; :tnd U.S. Congress. Senate, Hearings Before the U.S. Senate 

Committee on Armed Services. Univemzl Military Training, 80th Cong .. 2d sess .. 1948, pp. 995- 96. See also 

Morris Janowitz. The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (New York: Free Press. 1960). pp. 

87ff. 

66Ltr, ODE to Gen Bruce Clarke (commander of the 2d Constabulary Brigade when it was integrated in 

19~0), 29 May 67. copy in CMH . 
228 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

"Liquor and women," Lt. Gen. 

John C. H. Lee pronounced, were the 

major ingredients of racial turmoil in 

the Army. Although General Lee had 

been a prime mover in the wartime integration of combat platoons, he 

wanted the Army to avoid social integration because of the disturbances he 

believed would attend it. As General 

Omar N. Bradley saw it, the Army 

could integrate its training programs 

but not the soldier's social life. Hope of 

progress would be destroyed if integration was pushed too fasr. Bradley 

summed up his postwar attitude very 

simply: "I said let's go easy- as fast as 

we can." 

Second, segregation was an efficient 

way to isolate the poorly educated and 

undertrained black soldier, especially 

one with a combat occupational specialty. To integrate Negroes into white 

combat units, already dangerously 

underscrength, would threaten the 

Army's fighting ability. When he was 

INSPECI'ION BY THE CHIEF OF STAFF. 

General Dwight D. Eisenhower talks 

with a soldier of the 25th Combat 

Team Motor Pool during a tottr of 

Fort Benning, Georgia, 1947. 

Chief of Staff, Eisenhower thought many of the problems associated with black 

soldiers, problems of morale, health, and discipline, were problems of education, and that the Negro was capable of change. "I believe," he said, "that a 

Negro can improve his standing and his social standing and his respect for certain of the standards that we observe, just as well as we can." Lt. Gen. Wade H. 

Haislip, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Administration, concluded that the 

Army's racial mission was education. All that Circular 124 meant, he explained, 

''was that we had to begin educating the Negro soldiers so they could be mixed 

sometime in the future." Bradley observed in agreement that "as you begin to 

get better educated Negroes in the service," there is "more reason to integrate.'' The Army was pledged to accept Negroes and to give them a wide 

choice of assignment, but until their education and training improved they had 

to be isolated. 

Third, segregation was the only way co provide equal treatment and opportunity for black troops. Defending this paternalistic argument, Eisenhower cold 

the Senate: 

In general, the Negro is less well educated ... and if you make a complete amalgamation, what you are going to have is in every company the Negro is going tO be relegated 

to the minor jobs, and he is never going to get his promotion to such grades as technical 

sergeant, master sergeant, and so on, because the competition is wo tough. If, on the 
SEGREGATION'S CONSEQUENCES 229 

other hand, he is in smaller units of his own, he can go up to that rate, and 1 believe he 

is entitled to rhe chance to show his own wares. 

Fourth, segregation was necessary because segments of American society 

with powerful representatives in Congress were violently opposed to mixing the 

races. Bradley explained that integration was part of social evolution, and he was 

afraid that the Army might move too fast for certain sections of the country. "I 

thought in 1948 that they were ready in the North," he added, "but not in the 

South." The south "learned over the years that mixing the races was a vast 

problem." Bradley continued, "so any change in the Army would be a big step 

in the South." General Haislip reasoned, you "just can't do it all of a sudden." 

As for the influence of those opposed to maintaining the Army's social status 

quo, Haislip, who was the Vice Chief of Staff during part of the Gillem Board 

period, recalled that "everybody was floundering around, trying to find the 

right thing to do. I didn't lose any sleep over it [charges of discrimination]." 

General Eisenhower, as he did so often during his career, accurately distilled the 

thinking of his associates: 

I believe that the human race may finally grow up to the point where it [race relations] 

will not be a problem. It [rhe race problem] will disappear through education, through 

mutual respect, and so on. But 1 do believe that if we attempt merely by passing a lor of 

laws to force someone to like someone else, we are just going to get into trouble. On the 

other hand, I do not by any means hold out for this extreme segregation as 1 said when 1 

first joined the Army 38 years ago. 

These arguments might be specious, as a White House committee would 

later demonstrate, but they were not necessarily guileful, for they were the 

heartfelt opinions of many of the Army's leaders, opinions shared by officials of 

the other services. These men were probably blind to the racism implicit in their 

policies, a racism nurtured by military tradition. Education and environment 

had fostered in these career officers a reverence for tradition. Why should the 

Army, these traditionalists might ask, abandon its black units, some with 

histories stretching back almost a century? Why should the ordered social life of 

the Army post, for so long a mirror of the segregated society of most civilian 

communities, be so uncomfortably changed? The fact that integration had 

never really been tried before made it fraught with peril, and all the forces of 

military tradition conspired to support the old ways. 

What had gone unnoticed by Army planners was the subtle change in the attitude of the white enlisted man toward integration. Opinion surveys were rare 

in an institution dedicated to the concept of military discipline, but nevertheless 

in the five years following the war several surveys were made of the racial views 

of white troops (the views of black soldiers were ignored, probably on the 

assumption that all Negroes favored integration). In 1946, just as the Gillem 

Board policy was being enunciated, the Army staff found enlisted men in 

substantial agreement on segregation. Although most of those surveyed supported the expanded use of Negroes in the Army, an overwhelming majority 

voted for the principle of having racially separate working and living arrangements. Yet the pollsters found much less opposition to integration when 

they put their questions on a personal basis-"How do you feel about ... ?" 

Only southerners as a group registered a clear majority for segregated working 
230 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

conditions. The survey also revealed 

another. encouraging portent: most of 

the opposition to integration existed 

among older and less educated men.67 

Three years later the Secretary of 

Defense sponsored another survey of 

enlisted opinion on segregation. This 

time less than a third of those questioned were opposed to integrated 

working conditions and some 40 percent were not "definitely opposed" co 

complete integration of borh working 

and living arrangements. Again men 

from all areas tended to endorse integration as their educational level rose; 

opposition, on the other hand, centered 

in 1949 among the chronic complainers 

and those who had never worked with 

Negroes. 68 GENERALDAVIS 

I n discussing prejudice and 

discrimination it is necessary to compare 

the Army with the rest of American society. Examining the question of race relations in the Army runs the risk of distorring the importance given the subject 

by the nation as a whole in the postwar period. While resistance to segregation 

was undoubtedly growing in the black community and among an increasing 

number of progressives in the white community, there was as yet no widespread 

awareness of the problem and certainly no concerted public effort to end it. This 

lack of perception might be particularly justified in the case of Army officers, for 

few of them had any experience with black soldiers and most undoubtedly were 

not given to wide reading and reflecting on the subject of race relations. 

Moreover, the realities of military life tended to insulate Army officers from the 

main currents of American society. Frequently transferred and therefore without 

roots in the civilian community, isolated for years at a time in overseas 

assignments, their social life often centered in the military garrison, officers 

might well have been less aware of racial discrimination. 

Perhaps because of the insulation imposed on officers by their duties, the 

Army's leaders were achieving reforms far beyond those accepted elsewhere in 

American society. Few national organizations and industries could match the 

Army in 1948 for the number of Negroes employed, the breadth of responsibility given them, and the variety of their training and occupations. Looked at 

67Thc 1946 survey is contained in CINFO. "Supplementary Rpt on Auitudcs of Whites Toward Serving 

With Negro EM." lncl to Memo, Col Charles S. Johnson. Exec Off. CofS. for DCofS, 24 May 49. sub: 

Segregation in the Army, CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (24 May 48). 68Armed Forces l&E Div, OSD, Rpt No. 101, " Morale Anitudes of Enlisted Men. May-June 1949." pt. 

II, Attitude Toward Integration of Negro Soldiers in the Army. copy in CMH. 
SEGREGATION'S CONSEQUENCES 231 

in this light, the Army of 1948 and the men who led it could with considerable 

justification be classed as a progressive force in the fight for racial justice. 

Segregation: An Assessment 

The gap between the Army's stated goal of integration and its continuing 

practices had grown so noticeable in 1948, a presidential election year, that most 

civil rights spokesmen and their allies in the press had become disillusioned with 

Army reforms. Benjamin 0. Davis, still the Army's senior black officer and still 

after eight years a brigadier general, called the Army staff's attention to the shift 

in attitude. Most had greeted publication of Circular 124 as "the dawn of a new 

day for the colored soldier'' - General Davis's words- and looked forward to 

the gradual eradication of segregation. But 1\rmy practices in subsequent 

months had brought disappointment, he warned the under secretary, and the 

black press had become ''restless and impatient.'' He wanted the Army staff to 

give ''definite expression of the desire of the Department of National Defense 

for the elimination of all forms of discrimination-segregation from the Armed 

Services. " 69 The suggestion was disapproved. General Paul explained that the 

Army could not make such a policy statement since Circular 124 permitted 

segregated units and a quota that by its nature discriminated at least in terms of 

numbers of Negroes assigned. 70 

In February 1948 the Chief of Information tried to counter criticism by asking personnel and administrative officials to collect favorable opinions from 

prominent civilians, "particularly Negroes and sociologists." But this antidote 

to public criticism failed because, as the deputy personnel director had to admit, 

''the Division does not have knowledge of any expressed favorable opinion 

either of individuals or organizations, reference our Negro policy.' '

71 

A constant concern because it marred the Army's public image, segregation 

also had a profound effect on the performance and well-being of the black 

soldier. This effect was difficult to measure but nevertheless real and has been 

the subject of considerable study by social scientists. 72 Their opinions are obviously open to debate, and in fact most of them were not fully formulated during the period under discussion. Yet their conclusions, based on modern 

sociological techniques, clearly reveal the pain and turmoil suffered by black 

soldiers because of racial separation. Rarely did the Army staff bother to delve 

69Memo, Brig Gcn B. 0. Davis, Sp Assr co SA, for Under SA. 7 Jan 48. sub: Negro Utilization in the 

Postwar Army, WDGPA 291.2; ibid ., 24 Nov 47; both in SA files. The quotations are from the Iauer document. 

70Mcmo, D/ P&A for Under SA, 29 Apr 48, sub: Negro Utili zation in the Postwar Army. WDGPA 291.2. 7 1DF's, CINFO co D/P&A, 9 Feb 48, and Dep D/P&A to CINFO. 12 Feb 48; both in WDGPA 291 .2 (9 

Feb 48). 

72For a detailed discussion of this point. sec Mandelbaum. Soldier Groups and Negro Soldiers; Stouffer ct 

al.. The American Soldier: Adjustmer1t During Army L1je, ch. XII; Eli Ginzberg, The Negro Potential (New 

York: Columbia University Press, 1956); Ginzberg ct al. , The Ineffective Soldier, vol. lll. Patterm of 

Performa1JCe (New York: Columbia University Press. 1959); To Secme These Rights: The Repo!l of the Presi· 

dem's Comtmitee on Civil Rights (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1947); Dollard and Young, 

" In the Armed Forces." 
232 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

into these matters in the years before Korea, although the facts on which the 

scientists based their conclusions were collected by the War Depa"rcment itself. 

This indifference is the more curious because the Army had always been aware 

of what the War Department Policies and Programs Review Board called in 1947 

''that intangible aspect of military life called prestige and spirit.' '

73 

Burdened with the task of shoring up its racial policy, the Army'staff failed 

to concern itself with the effect of segregation. Yet by ignoring segregation the 

staff overlooked the primary cause of its racial problems and condemned the 

Army to their continuation. It need not have been, because as originally conceived, the Gillem Board policy provided, in the words of the Assistant Secretary 

of War, for "progressive experimentation" leading to "effective manpower 

utilization without regard to race or color. " 74 This reasonable approach to a 

complex social issue was recognized as such by the War Department and by 

many black spokesmen. But the Gillem Board's original goal was soon abandoned, and in the "interest of National Defense," according to Secretary 

Royall, integration was postponed for the indefinite furure. ~ Extension of individual integration below the company level was forbidden, and the lessons 

learned at the Kitzingen Training Center were never applied elsewhere; in 

short, progressive experimentation was abandoned. 

The Gillem Board era began with Secretary Patterson accepting the theory of 

racially separate but equal service as an anodyne for temporary segregation; it 

ended with Secretary Royall embracing a permanent separate but equal system 

as a shield to protect the racial status quo. While Patterson and his assistants accepted restriction on the number of Negroes and their assignment to segregated 

jobs and facilities as a temporary expedient, military subordinates used the 

Gillem Board • s reforms as a way to make more efficient a segregation policy that 

neither they nor, they believed, society in general was willing to change. Thus, 

despite some real progress on the periphery of its racial problem, the Army 

would have to face the enemy in Korea with an inefficient organization of its 

men. 

The Army's postwar policy was based on a false premise. The Gillem Board 

decided that since Negroes had fought poorly in segregated divisions in two 

world wars, they might fight better in smaller segregated organizations within 

larger white units. Few officers really believed this, for it was commonly accepted throughout the Army that Negroes generally made poor combat soldiers. 

It followed then that the size of a unit was immaterial, and indeed, given the 

manpower that the Army received from reenlistments and Selective Service, any 

black unit, no matter its size, would almost assuredly be an inefficient, spiritless 

group of predominately Class IV and V men. For in addition to its educational 

limitations, the typical black unit suffered a further handicap in the vital matter 

of motivation. The Gillem Board disregarded this fact, but it was rarely 

73 Final Rpt, WD Policies and Programs Review Board. II Aug 47, CSUSA files. 74Ltr, Howard C. Petersen. ASW. tO William M. Taylor, 12 May 47, ASW 291.2. 7)Dcpanmcnt of National Defense, "National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs," 26 Apr 48, morn· 

ing session. p. 24. 
SEGREGATION'S CONSEQUENCES 233 

overlooked by the black soldier: he was called upon to serve as a second-class 

soldier to defend what he often regarded as his second-class citizenship. In place 

of unsatisfactory black divisions, Circular 124 made the Army substitute three 

unsatisfactorily mixed divisions whose black elements were of questionable efficiency and a focus of complaint among civil rights advocates. Commanders at all 

levels faced a dilemma implicit in the existence of white and black armies side 

by side. Overwhelmed by regulations and policies that tried to preserve the fiction of separate but equal opportunity, these officers wasted their time and 

energy and, most often in the case of black officers, lost their self-confidence. 

In calling for the integration of small black units rather than individuals, the 

Gillem Board obviously had in mind the remarkably effective black platoons in 

Europe in the last months of World War II. But even this type of organization 

was impossible in the postwar Army because it demanded a degree of integration that key commanders, especially the major Army component commanders, 

were unwilling to accept. 

These real problems were intensified by the normal human failings of prejudice, vested interest, well-meaning ignorance, conditioned upbringing, shortsightedness, preoccupation with other matters, and simple reluctance to change. 

The old ways were comfortable, and the new untried, frightening in their implications and demanding special effort. Nowhere was there enthusiasm for the 

positive measures needed to implement the Gillem Board's recommendations 

leading to integration. This unwillingness to act positively was particularly 

noticeable in the Organization and Training Division, in the Army Ground 

Forces, and even to some extent in the Personnel and Administration Division 

itself. 

The situation might have improved had the Gillem Board been able or willing to spell out intermediate goals. For the ultimate objective of using black 

soldiers like white soldiers as individuals was inconceivable and meaningless or 

radical and frightening to many in the Army. Interim goals might have provided impetus for gradual change and precluded the virtual inertia that gripped 

the Army staff. But at best Circular 124 served as a stopgap measure, allowing 

the Army to postpone for a few more years any substantial change in race policy. 

This postponement cost the service untold time and effort devising and defending a system increasingly under attack from the black community and, 

significantly, from that community's growing allies in the administration. 
CHAPTER9 

The Postwar Navy 

That Army concerns and problems dominated the discussions of race relations in the armed forces in the postwar years is understandable since the Army 

had the largest number of Negroes and the most widely publicized segregation 

policy of all the services. At the same time the Army bore, unfairly, the brunt of 

public criticism for all the services' race problems. The Navy, committed to a 

policy of integration, but with relatively few Negroes in its integrated general 

service or in the ranks of the segregated Marine Corps and the new Air Force, its 

racial policy still fluid, merely attracted less attention and so escaped many of 

the charges hurled at the Army by civil rights advocates both in and out of the 

federal government. But however different or unformed their racial policies, all 

the services for the most part segregated Negroes in practice and all were open to 

charges of discrimination. 

Although the services developed different racial policies out of their separate 

circumstances, all three were reacting co the same sec of social forces and all three 

suffered from race prejudice. They also faced in common a growing indifference 

to military careers on the part of talented young Negroes who in any case would 

have to compete with an aging but persistent group of less talented black professionals for a limited number of jobs. Of great importance was the fact that the 

racial practices of the armed forces were a product of the individual service's 

military traditions. Countless incidents support the contention that service 

traditions were a transcendent factor in military decisions. Marx Leva, Forrestal's 

assistant, told the story of a Forrescal subordinate who complained that some admirals were still opposed to naval aviation, to which Forrestal replied that he 

knew some admirals who still opposed steam engines. 1 Forrestal's humorous exaggeration underscored the tenacity of traditional attitudes in the Navy. 

Although self-interest could never be discounted as a motive, tradition also 

figured prominently, for example, in the controversy between proponents of the 

battleship and proponents of the aircraft carrier.Certainly the influence of tradition could be discerned in the antipathy of Navy officials toward racial change. 2 

The Army also had its problems with tradition. It endured tremendous inner 

conflict before it decided to drop the cavalry in favor of mechanized and armored units. Nor did the resistance to armor die quickly. Former Chief of Staff 

1 lnterv, lee Nichols with Marx Leva, 1953. in Nichols Collen ion. CMH. 2

0n the survival of uaditional auitudes in the Navy. sec Karsten, Naval Aristocracy, ch. v; Waldo H. 

Heinricks. Jr., "The Role of the U.S. Navy," in Dorothy Borg and Shumpci Okamoto. cds .. Pearl Harbor as 

History (New York: Columbia University Press. 1973); David Rosenberg, "Arlcigh Burke and Officer 

Development in the lntcr·war Navy," Pactfic Ht1torical Review ~4 (November 1975). 
THE POSTWAR NAVY 235 

Peyton C. March reported that a previous Chief of Cavalry told him in 1950 that 

the Army had betrayed the horse. 3 President Roosevelt was also a witness to how 

military tradition fruStrated attempts to change policy. He picked his beloved 

Navy to make the point: ''To change anything in the Na-a-vy is like punching a 

feather bed. You punch it with your right and you punch it with your left until 

you are finally exhausted, and then you find the damn bed just as it was before 

you started punching.''4 Many senior officers resisted equal treatment and opportunity simply because of their traditional belief that Negroes needed special 

treatment and any basic change in their status was fraught with danger.~ 

Still, tradition could work two ways, and in the case of the Navy, at least, the 

postwar decision to liberalize racial practices can be traced in part to its sense of 

tradition. When James Forrestal started to integrate the general service in 1944, 

his appeals to his senior military colleagues, the President, and the public were 

always couched in terms of military efficiency. But if military efficiency made 

the new policy announced in February 1946 inevitable, military tradition made 

partial integration acceptable. Black sailors had served in significant numbers in 

an integrated general service during the nation's first century and a half, and 

those in the World War II period who spoke of a traditional Navy ban against 

Negroes were just as wrong as those who spoke of a traditional ban on liquor. 

The same abstemious secretary who completely outlawed alcohol on warships in 

1914 initiated the short-lived restrictions on the service of Negroes in the Navy.6 

Both limited integration and liquor were old traditions in the American Navy, 

and the influence of military tradition made integration of the general service 

relatively simple. 

Forrestal was convinced that in order to succeed racial reform must first be 

accepted by the men already in uniform; integration, if quietly and gradually 

put into effect, would soon demonstrate its efficiency and make the change acceptable to all members of the service. Quiet gradualism became the hallmark 

of his effort. In August 1945 the Navy had some 165,000 Negroes, almost 5.5 

percent of its total strength. Sixty-four of them, including six women, were 

commissioned officers. 7 Presumably, these men and women would be the first 

to enjoy the fruits of the new integration order. Their number could also be expected to increase because, as Secretary Forrestal reported in August 1946, the 

only quotas on enlistment were those determined by the needs of the Navy and 

3Edward M. Coffman. The Hilt of the Sword (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 1966), p. 245. 

4

Q uotcd in Marriner S. Eccles, Beckom'ng Frontiers: Publr~ a11d Personal l?ccollcctiom, ed. Sidney Hyman 

(New York: Knopf. 1951), p. 336. 

~The influence of uadirion on naval racial practices was raised during the hearings of the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 13 January 1949. pages 105-08, 

111 - 12. 6SecNav (Josephus Daniels} General Order 90, 1 Jul14. Alcohol had been outlawed for enlisted men at sea 

by Secretary John D. Long more than a decade earlier. The 1914 prohibition rule infuriated the officers. One 

predicted that the ruling would push officers into' 'the use of cocaine and other dangerous drugs." Quoted in 

Ronald Spector, Admiral of the New Empire (Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana Press, 1974}, pp. 191-92. 7Unlcss otherwise noted the statistical information used in this section was supplied by the Office, Assistant Chief for Management Information, SuPers. See also SuPers, "Enlisted Strength- U.S. Navy," 26 Jul 

46. Pcrs 215- BL, copy in CMH. 
236 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

SHORE LEAVE IN KOREA. Men of the USS Topeka land in Inch 'on, 1948. 

the limitation of funds. 8 Even as he spoke, at least some black sailors were being 

trained in almost all naval ratings and were serving throughout the fleet, on 

planes and in submarines, working and living with whites. The signs pointed to 

a new day for Negroes in the Navy. 

But during the chaotic months of demobilization a different picture began 

to emerge. Although Negroes continued to number about 5 percent of the 

Navy's enlisted strength, their position altered radically. The average strength 

figures for 1946 showed 3,300 Negroes, 16 percent of the total black strength, 

serving in the integrated general service while 17,300, or 84 percent, were 

classified as stewards. By mid-1948 the outlook was somewhat brighter, but still 

on the average only 38 percent of the Negroes in the Navy held jobs in the 

general service while 62 percent remained•in the nonwhite Steward's Branch. At 

this time only three black officers remained on active duty. Again, what Navy 

officials saw as military efficiency helps explain this postwar retreat. Because of 

its rapidly sinking manpower needs, the Navy could afford to set higher enlistment standards chao the Army, and the fewer available spaces in the general service went overwhelmingly to the many more eligible whites who applied. Only 

in the Steward's Branch, with its separate quotas and lower enlistment stan8Ltr, SccNav to Harvard Chapter, AVC, 26 Aug 46, Pl6-3 MM, GcnRccsNav. 
THE POSTWAR NAVY 237 

dards, did the Navy find a place for the many black enlistees as well as the 

thousands of stewards ready and willing to reenlist for peacetime service. 

If efficiency explains why the Navy's general service remained disproportionately white, tradition explains how segregation and racial exclusion could 

coexist with integration in an organization that had so recently announced a 

progressive racial policy. Along with its tradition of an integrated general service, the Navy had a tradition of a white officer corps. It was natural for the 

Navy to exclude black officers from the Regular Navy. Secretary John L. Sullivan 

said later,. just as it was common to place Negroes in mess jobs.9 A modus 

vivendi could be seen emerging from the twin dictates of efficiency and tradition: integrate a few thousand black sailors throughout the general service in 

fulfillment of the letter of the Bureau of Naval Personnel circular; as for the 

nonwhite Steward's Branch and the lack of black officers, these conditions were 

ordinary and socially comfortable. Since most Navy leaders agreed that the new 

policy was fair and practical, no further changes seemed necessary in the absence 

of a pressing military need or a demand from the White House or Congress. 

To black publicists and other advocates of civil rights, the Navy's postwar 

manpower statistics were self-explanatory: the Navy was discriminating against 

the Negro. Time and again the Navy responded to this charge, echoing 

Secretary Forrestal's contention that the Navy had no racial quotas and that all 

restrictions on the employment of black sailors had been lifted . As if suggesting 

that all racial distinctions had been abandoned, personnel officials discontinued 

publishing racial statistics and abolished the Special Programs Unit. 1

° Cynics 

might have ascribed other motives for these decisions, but the civil rights forces 

apparently never bothered. For the most part they left the Navy's apologists to 

struggle with the increasingly difficult task of explaining why the placement of 

Negroes deviated so markedly from assignment for whites. 

The Navy's difficulty in this regard stemmed from the fact that the 

demobilization program under which it geared down from a 3.4 million-man 

service to a peacetime force of less than half a million was quite straightforward 

and simple. Consequently. the latest state of the Negro in the Navy was readily 

apparent to the black serviceman and to the public. The key to service in the 

postwar Navy was acceptance into the Regular Navy. The wartime Navy had 

been composed overwhelmingly of reservists and inductees, and shortly after 

V-] day the Navy announced plans for the orderly separation of all reservists by 

September 1946. In April 1946 it discontinued volunteer enlistment in the 

91nterv, Nichols with Secretary John L. Sullivan, Dec 52, in Nichols Collection, CMH. Sullivan succeeded 

James Forrcstal as secretary on 18 September 1947. 10The BuPers Progress Report (Pers 215), the major statistical publication of the department, terminated 

its statjstical breakdown by race in March 1946. The Navy's racial affairs office was closed in June 1946. See 

BuPers, "Narrative of Bureau of Naval Personnel, 1 September 1945 to 1 October 1946" (hereafter "BuPers 

Narrative"), 1:73. 
238 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Naval Reserve for immediate active duty, and in May it issued its last call for 

draftees through Selective Service. 11 

At the same time the Bureau of Naval Personnel launched a vigorous program to induce reservists to switch to the Regular Navy. In October 1945 it 

opened all petty officer ratings in the Regular Navy to such transfers and offered 

reservists special inducements for changeover in the form of ratings, allowance 

extras, and, temporarily, short-term enlistments. So successful was the program 

that by July 1947 the strength of the Regular Navy had climbed to 488,712, only 

a few thousand short of the postwar authorization. The Navy ended its 

changeover program in early 1947. 12 While it lasted, black reservists and inductees shared in the program, although the chief of the personnel recruiting 

division found it necessary to amplify the recruiting instructions to make this 

point clear. 13 The Regular Navy included 7,066 enlisted Negroes on V-J day, 

2.1 percent of the total enlisted strength. This figure nearly tripled in the next 

year to 20,610, although the percentage of Negroes only doubled. 14 

The Steward's Branch 

The major concern of the civil rights groups was not so much the number of 

Negroes in the Regular Navy, although this remained far below the proportion 

of Negroes in the civilian population, bur that the majority of Negroes were being accepted for duty in the nonwhite Steward's Branch. More than 97 percent 

of all black sailors in the Regular Navy in December 1945 were in this branch. 

The ratio improved somewhat in the next six months when 3,000 black general 

service personnel (out of a wartime high of 90,000) transferred into the Regular 

Navy while more than 10,000 black reservists and draftees joined the 7,000 

regulars already in the Steward's Branch. 15 The statistical low point in terms of 

the ratio of Negroes in the postwar regular general service and the Steward's 

Branch occurred in fiscal year 1947 when only 19.21 percent of the Navy's 

regular black personnel were assigned outside the Steward's Branch. 16 In short, 

more than eight out of every ten Negroes in the Navy trained and worked 

separately from white sailors, performing menial tasks and led by noncommissioned officers denied the perquisites of rank. 

The Navy itself had reason to be concerned. The Steward's Branch created 

efficiency problems and was a constant source of embarrassment to the service's 

public image. Because of its low standards, the branch attracted thousands of 

poorly educated and underprivileged individuals who had a high rate of 

11 lbid .. p. 143; Selective Service System, Special GroupJ (Monograph 10), 2:200. Between September 

1945 and May 1946 the Navy drafted 20,062 men. including 3.394 Negroes. 12"BuPersNarralive," 1:141, 192: see also BuPersCirltr41-46, 15 Feb46. 13See Ltr, Chief. NavPers, ro CO, Naval Barracks, NAD. Seal Beach, Calif., 8 Oct 45. sub: Eligibility of 

Negroes for Enlistment in USN, Pl6 MM, BuPersRecs: Recruiting Die, BuPers, Directive to Recruiting Of. 

ficcrs4 25 Jan 46, quoted in Nelson. "lmcgralion of the Negro," p. 58. 1 SuPers, ''Enlisted Strength-U.S. Navy," 26 Jul 46, Pers 215- BL 

15

Memo. Die of Planning and Control, SuPers, for Chief, NavPers (ca. Jan 46), sub: Negro Personnel, Pers 

21B, BuPcrsRccs. 16BuPers, Memo on Discrimination of the Negro, 24 Jan 59. filed in SuPers Technical Library. 
THE POSTWAR NAVY 239 

MESS A1TENDANTS. USS BUSHNELL. 1918 

venereal disease but were engaged in preparing and serving food. Leaders within 

the branch itself, although selected on the basis of recommendations from 

superiors, examinations, and seniority, were often poor performers. Relations 

between the individual steward and the outfit to which he was assigned were 

often marked by personal conflicts and other difficulties. Consequently, while 

stewards eagerly joined the branch in the Regular Navy, the incidence of 

disciplinary problems among them was high. The branch naturally earned the 

opprobrium of civil rights groups, who were sensitive not only to the discrimination of a separate branch for minorities but also to the unfavorable image these 

men created of Negroes in the service. 17 

The Navy had a ready defense for its management of the branch. Its 

spokesmen frequently explained that it performed an essential function, 

especially at sea. Since this function was limited in scope, they added, the Navy 

was able to reduce the standards for the branch, thus opening opportunities for 

many men otherwise ineligible to join the service. In order to offer a chance for 

advancement the Navy had to create a separate recruiting and training system 

17Memo, Lt Dennis D. Nelson for Dep Dir, Pub Relations, 26 Mar 48, sub: Problems of rhe Stewards' 

Branch, PR 221-5393. GenRecsNav. On mental standards for stewards. see BuPcrs Cir Ltr 41-46. 15 Feb 46. 
240 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

MESS ATIENDANTS. USS WISCONSIN, 1953 

for stewards. This separation in turn explained the steward's usual failure to 

transfer to branche-s in the regular command channels. Since there were no 

minimum standards for the branch, it followed that most of its noncommissioned officers remained unqualified to exercise military command over personnel other than their branch subordinates. Lack of command responsibility was 

also present in a number of other branches not directly concerned with the 

operation of ships. It was not the result of race prejudice, therefore, but of standards for enlistment and types of duties performed. Nor was the steward's frequent physical separation based on race; berthing was arranged by department 

and function aboard large vessels. Separation did not exist on smaller ships. 

Messmen were usually berthed with other men of the supply department, including bakers and storekeepers. Chief stewards, however, as Under Secretary 

Kimball later explained, had not been required to meet the military qualifications for chief petty officer, and therefore it was' 'considered improper that they 

should be accorded the same messing, berthing, club facilities, and other 

privileges reserved for the highest enlisted grade of the Navy. " 18 Stewards of the 

lower ranks received the same chance for advancement as members of other 

enlisted branches, but to grant them command responsibility would necessitate 

18Ltr, Under SecNav for Congressman Clyde Doyle of California. 24 Aug 49. MM(I). GcnRccsNav. 
THE POSTWAR NAVY 241 

raising qualifications for the whole branch, thus eliminating many career 

stewards and extending steward training to include purely military subjects. 19 

There was truth in these assertions. Stewards had taken advantage of relaxed 

regulations, flocking into the Regular Navy during the first months of the 

changeover program. Many did so because they had many years invested in a 

naval career. Some may have wanted the training and experience to be gained 

from messman's service. In fact, some stewards enjoyed rewarding· careers in 

restaurant, club, and hotel work after retirement. More surprising, considering 

the numerous complaints about the branch from civil rights groups, the 

Steward's Branch consistently reported the highest reenlistment rate in the 

Navy. Understandably, the Navy constantly reiterated these statistics. Actually, 

the stewards themselves were a major stumbling block to reform of the branch. 

Few of the senior men aspired to other ratings; many were reluctant to relinquish what they saw as the advantages of the messman's life. Whatever its 

drawbacks, messman's duty proved co be a popular assignment. 20 

The Navy's defense was logical, but not too convincing. Technically the 

Steward's Branch was open to all , but in practice it remained strictly nonwhite. 

Civil rights activists could point co the fact that there were six times as many illiterate ~bites as Negroes in the wartime Navy, yet none of these whites were 

ever assigned to the Steward's Branch and none transferred to that branch of the 

Regular Navy after the war. 21 Moreover, shortly after the war the Bureau of 

Naval Personnel predicted a 7,577-man shortage in the Steward's Branch, but 

the Navy made no attempt to fill the places with white sailors. Instead, it 

opened the branch to Filipinos and Guamanians, recruiting 3, 500 of the 

islanders before the program was stopped on 4 July 1946, the date of Philippine 

independence. Some Navy recruiters found other ways to fill steward quotas. 

The Urban League and others reported cases in which black volunteers were rejected by recruiters for any assignment but steward duty. 

22 Nor did civil rights 

spokesmen appreciate the distinction in petty officer rank the Navy made between the steward and other sailors; they continued to interpret it as part and 

parcel of the " injustices, lack of respect and the disregard for the privileges accorded rated men in other branches of the service. ' '

23 They also resented the 

paternalism implicit in the secretary's assurances that messman's duty was a 

haven for men unable to compete. 

Some individuals in the department were aware of this resentment in the 

black community and pushed for reform in the Steward's Branch. The Assistant 1

9For examples of the Navy's official explanarion of steward dudes, sec Ltr, Actg SccNav to Lester Granger, 

22 Apr 46, QNIMM(2), and Ltr, Under SecNav to Congressman Clyde Doyle of California. 24 Aug 49; both 

in GcnRccsNav. Sec also Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to Dr. Carl Yaeger, 16 Oct 47. P16-l, BuPersRecs, and 

Testimony of Capt Fred R. Stickney. Bu'Pers, and Vice Adm William M. Fechtelcr, Chief of Naval Personnel, 

Before the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services (Fahy 

Cmte). 13 Jan and 28 Mar 49. 

20Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb 70. 21Ltr, Dir, Plans aod Oper Div, BuPers, to Richard Lucking, Berea College. 6 Dec 46. P16.1 , BuPersRecs. 22Dcpanmcnt of National Defense. "National Defense Conference on Racial Affairs," 26 Apr 48. morn· 

ing session, pp. 46-47. 

HMemo. LtD. D. Nelson. office of Public Relations, for Capt E. B. Dexter, Office of Public Relations, 24 

Aug 48. sub: Negro Stewards, Petty Officer Ratings, Status of, PR 221-14003. GcnRccsNav. 
242 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Secretary of the Navy for Air, John Nicholas Brown, wanted more publicity 

given both in and outside the service to the fact that the branch was not 

restricted to any one race and, conversely, that Negroes were welcome in the 

general service. 

24 In view of the strong tradition of racial separateness in the 

stewards rating, such publicity might be considered sheer sophistry, but no 

more so than the suggestion made by a senior personnel official that the Commissary Branch and Steward's Branch be combined to achieve a racially balanced 

specialty.H Lester Granger, now outside the official Navy family but still intimately concerned with the department's racial affairs, also pleaded for a 

merger of the commissary and steward functions. He reasoned that, since 

members of the Commissary Branch could advance to true petty officer rating, 

such a merger would provide a new avenue of advancement for stewards. 

But more to the point Granger also pushed for reform in the standards of the 

Steward's Branch. He recognized that educational and other requirements had 

been lowered for stewards, but, he told Forrestal's successor, Secretary John L. 

Sullivan, there was little wisdom in ''compounding past error.'' He also pointed 

out that not all messmen were in the lower intelligence classifications and 

recommended that the higher scoring men be replaced with low-scoring 

whites. 26 

From within the Navy itself Lt. Dennis D. Nelson, one of the first twelve 

Negroes commissioned and still on active duty, added his voice to the demand 

for reform of the Steward's Branch. An analogy may be drawn between the 

Navy career of Nelson and that of the legendary Christopher Sargent. Lacking 

Sargent's advantages of wealth and family connection, Nelson nevertheless 

became a familiar of Secretary Sullivan's and, though not primarily assigned to 

the task, made equal opportunity his preeminent concern. A highly visible 

member of the Navy's racial minority in Washington, he made himself its 

spokesman, pressing senior officials to bring the department's manpower practices closer to its stated policy. Once again the Navy experienced the curious 

phenomenon of a lieutenant firing off memos and letters to senior admirals and 

buttonholing the Secretary of the Navy. 27 

Nelson had a host of suggestions for the Steward's Branch: eliminate the 

branch as a racially separate division of labor in the Navy, provide permanent officer supervision for all steward units, develop capable noncommissioned officers in the branch with privileges and responsibilities similar to those of other 

petty officers, indoctrinate all personnel in the ramifications of the Navy's stated 

integration policy, and create a committee to work out the details of these 

changes. On several occasions Nelson tried to show his superiors how nuances in 

their own behavior toward the stewards reinforced, perhaps as much as separate 

service itself, the image of discrimination. He recommended that the steward's 

uniform be changed, eliminating the white jacket and giving the steward a 

24Ltr, Assr SccNav to Lester Granger, 22 Apr 48. QN-MM (2), GenRccsNav. 2llnterv, Nichols with Capt George A. Holderness. Jr., USN. in Nichols Collection. CMH. 

26Ltr, Granger to SecNav, I~ Mar 48, S0-3-18-~6. SecNav files. GenRecsNav. 27Interv, Nichols with Sullivan: Imervs, author with Lt Cmdr D. D. Nelson, 17 Scp 69. and with James C. 

Evans, Counselor to the SecDcf, 10 Jan 73; Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb 70. All in CMH files. 
THE POSTWAR NAVY 243 

regular seaman's look. He also suggested that petty officer uniforms for stewards 

be regularized. At one poignant moment this lonely officer took on the whole 

service, trying to change singlehandedly a thoughtless habit that demeaned 

both blacks and whites. He admonished the service: "refrain from the use of 

'Boy' in addressing Stewards. This has been a constant practice in the Service 

and is most objectionable, is in bad taste, shows undue familiarity and pins a 

badge of inferiority, adding little to the dignity and pride of adults.' '

28 

In summing up these recommendations for the Secretary of the Navy in 

January 1949. Nelson reminded Sullivan that only 37 percent of the Navy's 

Negroes were in the general service, in contrast to 72 percent of the Negroes in 

the Marine Corps. He warned that this imbalance perturbed the members of the 

recently convened National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs and predicted 

it would interest those involved in the forthcoming presidential inquiry on 

equality in the armed forces. 29 

Despite its continued defense of the status quo in the Steward's Branch, the 

Bureau of Naval Personnel was not insensitive to criticism. To protect Negroes 

from overzealous recruiters for the branch, the bureau had announced in October 1945 that any Negro in the general service desiring transfer to the 

Steward's Branch had to make his request in writing. 

30 In mid -1946 it closed the 

branch to first enlistment, thereby abolishing possible abuses in the recruiting 

system. 31 Later in the year the bureau tried to upgrade the quality of the branch 

by instituting a new and more rigorous training course for second- and thirdclass stewards and cooks at Bainbridge, Maryland. Finally, in June 1947 it 

removed from its personnel manual all remaining mention of restrictions on the 

transfer of messmen to the general service. 32 These changes were important, but 

they failed to attack racial separation, the major problem of the branch. Thus 

the controversy over messmen, in which tradition, prejudice, and necessity contended, went on, and the Steward's Branch, a symbol of discrimination in the 

Navy, remained to trouble both the service and the civil rights groups for some 

time. 

Black Officers 

The Navy had a racial problem of more immediate concern to men like 

Lieutenant Nelson, one of three black officers remaining on active duty. These 

were the survivers of a most exclusive group that had begun its existence with 

much hope. In the months following graduation of the first twelve black officers 

and one warrant officer in March 1944, scores of Negroes had passed through 

the Navy's training school. By the end of the war the V-12 program had thirtysix black candidates, with three others attending the Supply Corps School at 

28Memo, Lt Nelson for Capt Dexter, Pub Rels Office, 24 Aug 48, sub: Negro Stewards, Petty Officer 

Ratings, Status of, PR 221-14003; idem for Dep Dir, Off of Pub Reladons. 26 Mar 48, sub: Problems of the 

Stewards' Branch, PR 221-5393; both in GenRccsNav. The quotation is from the latter document. 

29Ltr, Nelson to SecNav, 7 Jan 49. SccNav files, GenRecsNav. For discussion of the presidential inquiry, sec Chapter 14. 

3°BuPers Cir Ltr, 17 Ocr 45. 31Tcstimony of Capt Fred Stickney at National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48, morning 

session, p. 47. 

32Change 12 to Article D-5114, BuPcrs Manual, 1942. 
244 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Harvard. The number of black officers 

had grown at an agonizingly slow rate, 

although in June 1944 the Secretary of 

the Navy approved a personnel bureau 

request that in effect removed any 

numerical quotas for black officers. Unfortunately, black officers were still 

limited co filling ''needs as they appeared,' ' and the need for black officers 

was curtailed by the restricted range of 

acuvmes open to them in the 

segregated wartime service. Further, 

most nominees for commissions were 

selected from the ranks and depended 

on the sponsorship of their commanding officer who might not be able 

to spare a competent enlisted man who 

deserved promotion. Putting the matter 

in the best possible light, one Navy 

historian blamed the dearth of black officers on bureaucratic inertia)} 

COMMANDER NELSON 

Despite procurement failures and within the limitations of general segregation policy, the Navy treated black officers with scrupulous fairness during the 

war. The Bureau of Naval Personnel insisted they be given the privileges of rank 

in wardroom and ashore, thus crushing an attempt by authorities at Great Lakes 

to underwrite a tacit ban on the use of the officers' dub by Negroes. In fact, integration proved to be more the rule than the exception in training black officers. The small number of black candidates made segregated classes impractical, and after graduation of the first group of black officers at Great Lakes, 

Negroes were accepted in all officer candidate classes. As part of this change, the 

Special Programs Unit successfully integrated the Navy's officer candidate 

school in the posh hotels of still-segregated Miami Beach. 

The officers graduated into a number of assignments. Some saw duty aboard 

district and yard craft, ochers at departmental headquarters in Washington. A 

few served in recruit training assignments at Great Lakes and Hampton Institute, but the majority went overseas to work in logistical and advanced base 

companies, the stevedore-type outfits composed exclusively of Negroes. Nelson, 

for example, was sent to the Marshall Islands where he was assigned to a logistic 

support company composed of some three hundred black sailors and noncommissioned officers with a racially mixed group of officers. Black staff officers, 

engineers, doctors, dentists, and chaplains were also attached to these units, 

where they had limited responsibilities and little chance for advancement. 34 

H"BuPers Hist." pp. 8}-8~. and Supplement (LN), pp. 4-8. copy in CMH. Unless otherwise noted the 

data for this section on black officers in World War II are from rhis source. 

HNclson, ''Integration of rhc Negro.'' pp. 156-58. 
THE POSTWAR NAVY 24) 

Exceptions to the assignment rule increased during the last months of the 

war. The Special Programs Unit had concluded that restricting black officers to 

district craft and shore billets might further encourage the tendency to build an 

inshore black Navy, and the Bureau of Naval Personnel began assigning black 

officers to seagoing vessels when they completed their sea duty training. By July 

194) several were serving in the fleet. To avoid embarrassment, the Chief of 

Naval Personnel made it a practice to alert the commanding officers of a ship 

about to receive a black officer so that he might indoctrinate his officers. As his 

assistant, Rear Adm. William M. Fechteler, explained to one such commander, 

I I if such officers are accorded the proper respect and are required to discharge 

the duties commensurate with their rank they should be equally competent to 

white officers of similar experience.'' 35 

Fechteler's prediction proved accurate. By V-J day, the Navy's black officers, both line and staff, were serving competently in many occupations. The 

bureau reported that the "personnel relationship aspect" of their introduction 

into the service had worked well. Black officers with white petty officers and 

enlisted men under them handled their command responsibilities without difficulty, and in general bureau reports and field inspections noted considerable 

satisfaction with their performance. 36 But despite this satisfactory record, only 

three black officers remained on active duty in 1946. The promise engendered 

by the Navy's treatment of its black officers in the closing months of the war had 

not been fulfilled during the demobilization period that followed, and what 

had been to the civil rights movement a brightening situation rapidly became an 

intolerable one. 

There were several reasons for the rapid demobilization of black officers. 

Some shared the popular desire of reserve officers to return to civilian life. 

Among them were mature men with substantial academic achievements and 

valuable technical experience. Many resented in particular their assignment to 

all-black labor units, and wanted to resume their civilian careersY But a 

number of black officers, along with over 29,000 white reservists, did seek 

commissions in the Regular Navy. 

38 Yet not one Negro was granted a regular 

commission in the first eighteen months after the war. Lester Granger was 

especially upset by these statistics, and in July 1946 he personally took up the 

case of two black candidates with Secretary ForrestaJ.39 

The Bureau of Naval Personnel offered what it considered a reasonable 

explanation. As a group, black reserve officers were considerably overage for 

their rank and were thus at a severe disadvantag~ in the fierce competition for 

regular commissions. The average age of the first class of black officers was over 

thirty-one years. All had been commissioned ensigns on 17 March 1944 , and all 

35" BuPcrs Hisr," p. 85. The quorarion is from Ltr, Chief, NavPers, ro CO, USS Laramie, 16 Jul 45 , BuPcrsRccs. 

36"BuPers Hist," p. 85. 

37Nelson ·'Integration of rhe Negro,' ' p. 15 7. 

38ALNAV 252-46, 21 May 46, sub: Transfer ro Regular Navy. 

39Lrr, Granger ro SecNav, 31 Jul 46, 54- 1- 13, Forresral file, GenRecsNav. One of these applicants was Nelson, then a lieutenant, who received a promotion upon assignment as commanding officer of a logistic support company in the Marshall Islands. The grade became permanent upon Nelson's assignment to the 

Public Relations Bureau in Washington in 1946. 
246 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

had received one promotion to lieutenant, junior grade, by the end of the war. 

When age and rank did coincide, black reservists were considered for transfer. 

For example, on 15 March 1947 Ens. John Lee, a former V-12 graduate assigned 

as gur:tnery officer aboard a fleet auxiliary craft, received a regular commission, 

and on 6 January 1948 Lt. (jg.) Edith DeVoe, one of the four black nurses 

commissioned in March 1945, was transferred into the Regular Navy. The 

following October Ens. Jessie Brown was commissioned and assigned to duty as 

the first black Navy pilot. 

In a sense, the black officers had the cards stacked against them. As Nelson 

later explained, the bureau did not extend to its black line officers the same 

consideration given other reservists. While the first twelve black officers were 

given unrestricted line officer training, the bureau assigned them to restricted 

line positions, an added handicap when it came to promotions and retention in 

the postwar Navy. All were commissioned ensigns, although the bureau usually 

granted rank according to the candidate's age, a practice followed when it 

commissioned its first black staff officers, one of whom became a full lieutenant 

and the rest lieutenants, junior grade. As an overage reservist himself, Nelson 

remained on active duty after the war through the personal intervention of 

Secretary Forrestal. His tour in the Navy's public relations office was repeatedly 

extended until finally on 1 January 1950, thanks to Secretary Sullivan, he 

received a regular commission. 40 

Prospects tor an increase in black otticers were dim. With rare exception the 

Navy's officers came from the academy at Annapolis, the officer candidate 

program, or the Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps (NROTC) program. 

Ens. Wesley A. Brown would graduate in the academy's class of 1949, the sixth 

Negro to attend and the first to graduate in the academy's 104-year history. 

Only five other Negroes were enrolled in the academy's student body in 1949, 

and there was little indication that this number would rapidly increase. For the 

most part the situation was beyond the control of the Bureau of Naval 

Personnel. Competition was keen for acceptance at Annapolis. The American 

Civil Liberties Union later asserted that the exclusion of Negroes from many of 

the private prep schools, which so often produced successful academy 

applicants, helped explain why there were so few Negroes at the academy. 41 

Nor were many black officers tonhcoming trom the Navy's two other 

sources. Officer candidate schools, severely reduced in size after the war and a 

negligible source of career officers, had no Negroes in attendance from 1946 

through 1948. Perhaps most disturbing was the fact that in 1947 just fourteen 

Negroes were enrolled among more than 5,600 students in the NROTC program, the usual avenue to a Regular Navy commission.42 The Holloway program, the basis for the Navy's reserve officer training system, offered scholarships at fifty-two colleges across the nation, but the number of these scholarships was small, the competition incense, and black applicants, often burdened 

by inferior schooling, did not fare well. 

Nelson, ''Integration of the Negro.' ' pp. 15 7-59; Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb 70; lnrerv, Nichols with 

Sullivan. 

Lu. Exec Dir. ACLU. to SecNav. 26 Nov 57. GenRecsNav. 

ql"BuPers Narrative," I :295. 
THE POSTWAR NAVY 247 

Statistics pointed at least to the possibility that racial discrimination existed 

in the NROTC system. Unlike the Army and Air Force programs, reserve officer 

training in the Navy depended to a great extent on state selection committees 

dominated by civilians. These committees exercised considerable leeway in 

selecting candidates to fill their state's annual NROTC quota, and their decisions were final. Not one Negro served on any of the state committees. In fact, 

fourteen of the fifty-two colleges selected for reserve officer training barred 

Negroes from admission by law and others-the exact number is difficult to 

ascertain-by policy. One black newspaper charged that only thirteen of the 

participating institutions admitted Negroes.43 In all, only six black candidates 

survived this process to win commissions in 1948. 

Lester Granger blamed the lack of black candidates on the fact that so few 

Negroes attended the schools; undo~btedly, more Negroes would have been 

enrolled in reserve officer training had the program been established at one of 

the predominantly black colleges. But black institutions were excluded from the 

wartime V-12 program, and when the program was extended to include fiftytwo colleges in November 1945 the Navy again rejected the applications of black 

schools, justifying the exclusion, as it did for many white schools, on grounds of 

inadequacies in enrollment, academic credentials, and physical facilities. 44 

Some black spokesmen called the decision discriminatory. President Mordecai 

Johnson of Howard University ruefully wondered how the Navy's unprejudiced 

and nondiscriminatory selection of fifty-two colleges managed to exclude so 

neatly all black institutions. 45 

Others disagreed. From the first the Special Programs Unit had rejected the 

clamor for forming V-12 units in predominantly black colleges, arguing that in 

the long run this could be considered enforced segregation and hardly contribute to racial harmony. Although candidates were supposed to attend the 

NROTC school of their choice, black candidates were restricted to institutions 

that would accept them. If a black school was added to the program, all black 

candidates would very likely gravitate toward it. Several black spokesmen, including Nelson, took this attitude and urged instead a campaign to increase the 

number of Negroes at the various integrated schools in the NROTC system.46 

Whatever the best solution, a significant and speedy increase in the number of 

black officers was unlikely. 

Of lesser moment because of the small size of the WAVES and the Nurse 

Corps, the role of black women in the postwar Navy nevertheless concerned 

several civil rights leaders. Roy Wilkins, for one, concluded that the Navy's new 

policy which "hasn't worked out on the officer level ... hadn't worked on the 

women's level" either. 47 The Navy's statistics seemed to proved his contention. 

43Norfolkjournal and Guide, August 20, 1949. 

44Ltr, SecNav tO William T. Farley, Chmn, Civilian Components Policy Bd, DOD, 4 Mar 50, Q4, 

GenRccsNav. 

~Statcmcnt of Dr. Mordecai Johnson at National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48, morning session, p. 42. 

46Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb 70; sec also "BuPcrs Hist," p. 84. 

47Statement of Roy Wilkins at National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48, morning session 

p. 44. 
248 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940- 1965 

The service had 68 black enlisted women and 6 officers (including 4 nurses) on 

V-J day; a year later the number had been reduced to 5 black WAVES and 1 

nurse. The Navy sought to defend these statistics against charges of discrimination. A spokesman explained that the paucity of black WAVES resulted from 

the fact that Negroes were barred from the WAVES until December 1944, just 

months before the Navy stopped recruiting all WAVES. Black WAVES who had 

remained in the postwar Navy had been integrated and were being employed 

without discrimination. 48 

But criticism persisted. In February 1948 the Navy could count six black 

WAVES out of a total enlisted force of 1, 700, and during hearings on a bill to 

regularize the women's services several congressmen joined with a representative 

of the NAACP to press for a specific antidiscrimination amendment. The 

amendment was defeated, but not before Congressman Adam Clayton Powell 

charged that the status of black women in the Navy proved discrimination and 

demonstrated that the administration was practicing ''not merely discrimination, segregation, and Jim Crowism, but total exclusion. ''49 The same critics also 

demanded a similar amendment to the companion legislation on the WAC's, 

but it, too, was defeated . 

Black nurses presented a different problem. Two of the wartime nurses had 

resigned to marry and the third was on inactive status attending college. The 

Navy, Secretary Forrestal claimed in July 1947, was finding it difficult to replace 

them or add co their number. Observing that black leaders had shown considerable interest in the Navy's nursing program, Forrestal noted that a similar 

interest had not been forthcoming from black women themselves. During the 

Navy's 1946 recruitment drive co attract 1,000 new nurses, only one Negro applied, and she was disqualified on physical grounds. )O 

Public Image and the Problem of Numbers 

Individual black nurses no doubt had cogent reasons for failing co apply for 

Navy commissions, but the fact that only one applied called attention to a 

phenomenon that first appeared about 1946. Black Americans were beginning 

to ignore the Navy. Attempts by black reserve officers to procure NROTC applicants in black high schools and colleges proved largely unproductive. Nelson 

spoke before 8, 500 potential candidates in 1948, and a special recruiting team 

reached an equal number the following year, but the combined effort brought 

fewer than ninety black applicants to take the competitive examination. )I 

4 8Testimony of Stickney at National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48, morning session. p. 

43. 

49u .S. Congress, House, Committee on Armed Services. St1bcommincc No. 3. Organization and 

Mobilization, l-/eari11gs on S. 1641, To Establish the Women 's Amty Corps in the Regular Army, To 

Authorize the Enlistme11t and Appoimment of rPometl in the Regular Navy and Marine Corps and the Naval 

and Marine Corps Reserve and for Other Purposes, 80th Cong .. 2d scss .. 18 Feb 48, pp. 5603-08. 5657. 5698. 

5734-36. The Powell quotation is on page 5734 . 

)Oltr, SecNav to Congresswoman Margaret Chase Smith (Maine), 24 Jul47. OG / PI4-2, GcnRccsNav. 

HMemo, Dir. Pol Div, BuPers. for Capt William C. Chapman, Office of Information, Navy Dept, 21 Sep 

65; Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Chic£, Bur of Public Relations. 16 Dec 48, QR4; both in BuPcrsRccs. 
THE POSTWAR NAVY 249 

NAVAL UNIT PASSES IN REVIEW, Naval Advanced Base, Bremerhaven, Germany, 

1949. 

Recruiters had similar problems in the enlistment of Negroes for general service. 

Viewed from a different perspective, even the complaints and demands of black 

citizens, at flood tide during the war, now merely trickled into the secretary's office, reflecting, it could be argued, a growing indifference. That such unwillingness to enlist, as Lester Granger put it, should occur on the heels of a widely 

publicized promise of racial equality in the service was ironic. The Navy was 

beginning to welcome the 'Negro. but the Negro no longer seemed interested in 

joining.)2 

Several reasons were suggested for this attitude. Assistant Secretary Brown 

placed the blame, at least in part, on the gap between policy and practice. 

Because of delay in abolishing old discriminatory practices, he pointed out to 

the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, "the Navy's good public relations are 

endangered. "H The personnel bureau promptly investigated, found justificaHsee Testimony of Lester Granger and Assistant Secretary Brown at National Defense Conference on 

Negro Affairs. 26 Apr 48. morning session, pp. 45-46; and Memo, Nelson for Marx Leva. 24 May 48, copy in 

Nelson Archives. BMcmo, Asst SccNav for Air for Dcp CNO, 3 Feb 48, sub: Racial Discrimination, PL-4 {8). GcnRecsNav. 
250 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

tion for complaints of discrimination, and took corrective accion. 54 Yet, as 

Nelson pointed out, such corrections, often in the form of ''clarifying directives,'' were usually directed to specific commanders and tied to specific incidents and were ignored by other commanders as inapplicable to their own 

racial experiences. 55 Despite the existence of the racially separate Steward's 

Branch, the Navy's policy seemed so unassailable to the Chief of Naval Personnel that when his views on a congressional measure co abolish segregation in the 

services were solicited he reported without reservation that his bureau interposed 

no objection. 5

6 

The Navy's major racial problem by 1948 was the shockingly small number 

of Negroes in the service. In November 1948, a presidential election month, 

Negroes accounted for 4.3 percent of the navy's strength. Not only were there 

few Negroes in the Navy, but there were especially too few in the general service 

and practically no black officers, a series of statistics that made the predominately black and separate stewards more conspicuous. The Navy rejected an obvious solution, lowering recruitment standards, contending that it could not run 

its ships and aircraft with men who scored below ninety in the general classification test. 57 The alternative was to recruit among the increasing numbers of 

educated Negroes, as the personnel bureau had been trying to do. But here, as 

Nelson and others could report, the Navy faced severe competition from other 

employers, and here the Navy's public image had its strongest effect. 

Lt. Comdr. Edward Hope, a black reserve officer assigned to officer procurement, concluded that the black community, especially veterans, distrusted all 

the services. Consequently, Negroes tended co disregard announced plans and 

policies applicable to all citizens unless they were specially labeled ''for colored." Negroes tried co avoid the humiliation of applying for certain rights or 

benefits only to be arbitrarily rejected. 58 Compounding rhe suspicion and fear of 

humiliation, Hope reported, was a genuine lack of informacion on Navy policy 

that seriously limited the number of black applicants. 

The cause of confusion among black students over Navy policy was easy to 

pinpoint, for memories of the frustrations and insults suffered by black seamen 

during the war were still fresh. Negroes remembered the labor battalions bossed 

by whites-much like the old plantation system, Lester Granger observed. 

Unlike the Army, the Navy had offered few black enlisted men the chance of 

serving in vital jobs under black commanders. This slight, according to Granger, 

robbed the black sailor of pride in service, a pride that could hardly be restored 

by the postwar image of the black sailor not as a fighting man but as a servant or 

>

4

Sce Memo. Chief, NavPcrs, for CO, USS Grand Canyotl (AD 28), 17 Dec 48, sub: Navy Department's 

Non Discrimination Policy- Alleged Violation of, P14; ltr, Chief. NavPcrs, to Cmdt, Twelfth Nav Dist, 27 

Feb 46, sub: Officer Screening Procedure and Indoctrination Course in the Supervision of Negro Person- nel- Establishment of, Pees 4221; both in BuPersRecs. 

>>Memo, Nelson for Chief, NavPers, 29 Nov 48, sub: Complaint of Navy Enlisted Man Made to PittSburgh 

Courier ... , PR22l, BuPersRccs. 

>

6Mcmo, Chief. NavPers, for JAG, II Feb 47, sub: HR 279: To Prohibit Race Segregation in the Armed 

Forces of the United States, GcnRccsNav. 

Hfordiscussion of the problem of comparative enlistment standards, see Chapter 12. 

)

8Ltr, Lt Cmdr, E. S. Hope to SccDd, 17 May 48, with attached rpt, 054-1-10, GenRccsNav. 
SUBMARINER 
252 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

laborer. Always a loyal member of the Navy team, Granger was anxious to improve the Navy's public image in the black community, and he and others often 

advanced plans for doing so. 9 But any discussion of image quickly foundered 

on one point: the Navy would remain suspect in the eyes of black youth and be 

condemned by civil rights leaders as long as it retained that symbol of racism, 

the racially separate Steward's Branch. 

Here the practical need for change ran headlong into strong military tradition. An integrated general sevice was traditional and therefore acceptable; an 

integrated servants' branch was not. Faced with the choice of a small number of 

Negroes in the Navy and the attendant charges of racism or a change in its traditions, the Navy accepted the former. Lack of interest on the part of the black 

community was not a particularly pressing problem for the Navy in the immediate postwar years. Indeed, it might well have been a source of comfort for 

the military traditionalists who, armed with an unassailable integration policy, 

could still enjoy a Navy little changed from its prewar condition. Nevertheless, 

the lack of black volunteers for general service was soon to be discussed by a 

presidential commission, and in the next fifteen years would become a pressing 

problem when the Navy, the first service with a policy of integration, would find 

itself running behind in the race to attract minority members. 

)9Sec, for example, Ltr, Granger to SccNav, 10 Jun 47, ~4-1-13, Forrest a! file, GenRecsNav, and 

Granger's extensive comments and questions at the National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs. 26 Apr 

48. 
CHAPTER 10 

The Postwar Marine Corps 

Unlike the Army and Navy, the all-white Marine Corps seemed to consider 

the wartime enlistment of over 19,000 Negroes a temporary aberration. Forced 

by the Navy's nondiscrimination policy to retain Negroes after the war, Marine 

Corps officials at first decided on a black representation of some 2,200 men, 

roughly the same proportion as during the war. But the old tradition of racial 

exclusion remained strong, and this figure was soon reduced·. The corps also ignored the Navy's integration measures, adopting instead a pattern of segregation that Marine officials claimed was a variation on the Army's historic 

"separate but equal" black units. In fact, separation was real enough in the 

postwar corps; equality remained elusive. 

Racial Quotas and Assignments 

The problem was that any "separate but equal'' race policy, no matter how 

loosely enforced, was incompatible with the corps' postwar manpower resources 

and mission and would conflict with its determination to restrict black units to a 

token number. The dramatic manpower reductions of 1946 were felt immediately in the two major elements of the Marine Corps. The Fleet Marine 

Force, the main operating unit of the corps and usually under control of the 

Chief of Naval Operations, retained three divisions, but lost a number of its 

combat battalions. The divisions kept a few organic and attached service and 

miscellaneous units. Under such severe manpower restrictions, planners could 

not reserve one of the large organic elements of these divisions for black 

marines, thus leaving the smaller attached and miscellaneous units as the only 

place to accommodate self-contained black organizations. At first the Plans and 

Policies Division decided to assign roughly half the black marines to the Fleet 

Marine Force. Of these some were slated for an antiaircraft artillery battalion at 

Montford Point which would provide training as well as an opportunity for 

Negroes overseas to be rotated home. Others were placed in three combat service 

groups and one service depot where they would act as divisional service troops, 

and the rest went into 182 slots, later increased to 216, for stewards, the majority 

in aviation units. 

The other half of the black marines was to be absorbed by the so called nonFleet Marine Force, a term used to cover training, security, and miscellaneous 

Marine units, all noncombat, which normally remained under the control of the 

commandant. This part of the corps was composed of many small and usually 

self-contained units, but in a number of activities, particularly in the logistical 
254 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

establishment and the units afloat, 

reductions in manpower would 

necessitate considerable sharing of living and working facilities, thus making 

racial separation impossible. The planners decided, therefore, to limit black 

assignments outside the Fleet Marine 

Force to naval ammunition depots at 

McAlester, Oklahoma, and Earle, New 

Jersey, where Negroes would occupy 

separate barracks; co Guam and Saipan, 

principally as antiaircraft artillery; and 

to a small training cadre at Montford 

Point. Eighty stewards would also serve 

with units outside the Fleet Marine 

Force. With the exception of the depot 

at Earle, all these installations had been 

assigned Negroes during the war. 

Speaking in particular about the assignment of Negroes to McAlester, the 

Director of the Plans and Policies Division, Brig. Gen. Gerald C. Thomas, 

commented that "this has proven to be 

a satisfactory location and type of duty 

for these personnel." 1 Thomas's conMARINE ARTILLERY TEAM. Men of the ception of "satisfactory" duty for 

51st Defense Battalion in training at Negroes became the corps' rationale for 

Montford Point with 90-mm. antiair- it its postwar assignment policy. 

era gun. To assign Negroes to unskilled jobs 

because they were accustomed to such duties and because the jobs were located 

in communities that would accept black marines might be satisfactory to Marine 

officials, but it was considered racist by many civil rights spokesmen and left the 

Marine Corps open to charges of discrimination. The policy of tying the number 

of Negroes to the number of available, appropriate slots also meant that the 

number of black marines, and consequently the acceptability of black 

volunteers, was subject to chronic fluctuation. More important, it permitted if 

not encouraged further restrictions on the use of the remaining black marines 

who had combat training, thereby allowing the traditionalists to press for a 

segregated service in which the few black marines would be mostly servants and 

.laborers. 

The process of reordering the assignment of black marines began just eleven 

weeks after the commandant approved the staff's postwar policy recommendations. Informing the commandant on 6 January 1947 that "several changes have 

1Mcmos, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies. for CMC, 25 Sep and 17 Oct 46. sub: Post War Personnel Requirements, A0- 1, MC files. Unless otherwise noted, all the documems cited in this chapter are located in 

Hist Div, HQMC. The quotation is from the September memo. 
THE POSTWAR MARINE CORPS 255 

been made in concepts upon which such planning was based," General Thomas 

explained that the requirement for antiaircraft artillery units at Guam and 

Saipan had been canceled, along with the plan for maintaining an artillery unit 

at Montford Point. Because of the cancellation his division wanted to reduce the 

number of black marines to 1,500. These men could be assigned to depot companies, service units, and Marine barracks-all outside the Fleet Marine 

Force-or they could serve as stewards. The commandant's approval of this plan 

reduced the number of Negroes in the corps by 35 percent, or 700 men. Coincidental with this reduction was a 17 percent rise in spaces for black stewards to 

350. 2 

Approval of this plan eliminated the last Negroes from combat assignments, 

a fact that General Thomas suggested could be justified as "consistent with 

similar reductions being effected elsewhere in the Corps." But the facts did not 

support such a palliative. In June 1946 the corps had some 1,200 men serving in 

three antiaircraft artillery battalions and an antiaircraft artillery group headquarters. In June 1948 the corps still had white antiaircraft artillery units on 

Guam and at Camp LeJeune totaling 1,020 men. The drop in numbers was explained almost e()tirely by the elimination of the black units. 3 

A further realignment of black assignments occurred in June 1947 when 

General Vandegrift approved a Plans and Polici'es Division decision to remove 

more black units from security forces at naval shore establishments. The men 

were reassigned to Montford Point with the result that the number of black 

training and overhead billets at that post jumped 200 percent-a dubious decision at best considering that black specialist and recruit training was virtually at 

a standstill. General Thomas took the occasion to advise the commandant that 

maintaining an arbitrary quota of black marines was no longer a consideration 

since a reduction in their strength could be "adequately justified" by the 

general manpower reductions throughout the corps.

4 

Actually the Marine Corps was not as free to reduce the quota of 1, 500 

Negroes as General Thomas suggested. To make further cues in what was at 

most a token representation, approximately 1 percent of the corps in August 

1947, would further inflame civil rights critics and might well provoke a reaction 

from Secretary Forrestal. Even Thomas's accompanying recommendation 

carefully retained the black strength figure previously agreed upon and actually 

raised the number of Negroes in the ground forces by seventy-six men. The 

1, 500-man minimum quota for black enlistmc;nt survived the reorganization of 

the Fleet Marine Force later in 194 7, and the Plans and Policies Division even 

found it necessary to locate some 3 7 5 more billets for Negroes to maintain the 

figure. In August the commandant approved plans to add 100 slots for stewards 

and 275 general duty billets overseas, the latter to facilitate rotation and provide 

a broader range of assignments for Negroes. 5 Only once before the Korean War, 

2Memo, G. C. Thomas, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 6 Jan 4 7, sub: Negro Requirements, A0-1. 

3USMC Muster Rolls of Officers and Enlisted Men, 1946 and 1948. 4Memo, G. C. Thomas for CMC, 11 Jun 47, sub: Negro Requirements and Assignments, AO- I. 

5Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 28 Aug 47, sub: Requirel'l'lents for General Duty Negro 

Marines, A0-1. 
256 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

and then only briefly, did the authorized strength of Negroes drop below the 

1, 500 mark, although because of recruitment lags actual numbers never equaled 

authorized suength.6 

By mid-1947, therefore, the Marine Corps had abandoned its complex 

system of gearing the number of black marines to available assignments and, 

like the Army and the Air Force, had adopted a racial quota-but with an important distinction. Although they rarely achieved it, the Army and the Air 

Force were committed to accepting a fixed percentage of Negroes; in an effon to 

avoid the problems with manpower efficiency plaguing the other services, the 

Marine Corps established a straight numerical quota. Authorized black strength 

would remain at about l, 500 men until the Korean War. During that same 

period the actual percentage of Negroes in the Marine Corps almost doubled, 

rising from 1.3 percent of the 155,679-man corps in June 1946 to slightly more 

than 2 percent of the 74,279-man total in June 1950. 7 

Yet neither the relatively small size of the Marine Corps nor the fact that few 

black marines were enrolled could conceal the inefficiency of segregation. Over 

the next three years the personnel planning staff tried to find a solution to the 

problem of what it considered to be too many Negroes in the general service. 

First it began to reduce gradually the number of black units accommodated in 

the Operating Force Plan, absorbing the excess black marines by increasing the 

number of stewards. This course was not without obvious public relations disadvantages, but they were offset somewhat by the fact that the Marine Corps, 

unlike the Navy, never employed a majority of its black recruits as stewards. In 

May 1948 the commandant approved new plans for a 10 percent decrease in the 

number of general duty assignments and a corresponding increase in spaces for 

stewards.8 The trend away from assigning Negroes to general service duty continued until the Korean War, and in October 1949 a statistical high point was 

reached when some 33 percent of all black marines were serving as stewards. The 

doctrine that all marines were potential infantrymen stood, but it was small 

comfort co civil rights activists who feared that what at best was a nominal black 

representation in the corps was being pushed into the kitchen. 

But they had little to fear since the number of Negroes that could be absorbed in the Steward's Branch was limited. In the end the Marine Corps still 

had to accommodate two-thirds of its black strength in general duty billets, a 

course with several unpalatable consequences. For one, Negroes would be 

assigned to new bases reluctant to accept ,them and near some communities 

where they would be unwelcome. For another, given the limitations in selfcontained units, there was the possibility of introducing some integration in the 

men's living or working arrangements. Certainly black billets would have to be 

created at the expense of white billets. The Director of Plans and Policies warned 

61dcm for Div, Pub Info, 10 Nov 48, sub: Information Relating to Negro Marines, A0-1 . 7Unless otherwise noted. statistics in this section :1rc from NA Pers, D658 (A). Report, Navy and Mnri11e 

Corps Miltiary Statistics, 30 Jun 59. BuPcrs. Official figures on black marines are from reportS of the USMC 

Personnel Accounting Section. 8Mc:mo. Dir. Plans and Policies Div, for CMC. 20 May 48, sub: Procurement and Assignment of Negro 

Enlisted Personnel. A0-1. 
THE POSTWAR MARINE CORPS 257 

in August 1947 that the reorganization of the Fleet Marine Force, then under 

way, failed to allocate spaces for some 350 Negroes with general duty contracts. 

While he anticipated some reduction in this number as a result of the campaign 

to attract volunteers for the Steward's Branch, he admitted that many would remain unassigned and beyond anticipating a reduction in the black "overage" 

through attrition, his office had no tong-range plans for creating the needed 

spaces.9 When the attrition failed to materialize, the commandant was forced in 

December 1949 co redesignate 202 white billets for black marines with general 

duty contracts.

10 The problem of finding restricted asssignments for black 

marines in the general service lasted until it was overtaken by the manpower 

demands of the Korean War. Meanwhile to the consternation of the civil rights 

advocates, as the corps' definition of "suitable" assignment became more exact, 

the variety of duties to which Negro~s could be assigned seemed to decrease .

11 

Recruitment 

Postwar quotas and assignments for Negroes did nothing to curb the black 

community's growing impatience with separate and limited opportunities, a 

fact brought home to Marine Corps recruiters when they cried co enlist the 

Negroes needed to fill their quota. At first it seemed the traditionalists would 

regain their all-white corps by default. The Marine Corps had ceased drafting 

men in November 1945 and launched instead an intensive recruiting campaign 

for regular marines from among the thousands of reservists about to be discharged and regulars whose enlistments would soon expire. Included in this 

group were some 17,000 Negroes from among whom the corps planned co 

recruit its black contingent. To charges that it was discriminating in the enlistment of black civilians, the corps readily admitted that no new recruits were being accepted because preference was being given to men already in the corps. 12 

In truth, the black reservists were rejecting the blandishments of recruiters in 

overwhelming numbers. By May 1946 only 522 Negroes, less than a quarter of 

the small postwar black complement, had enlisted in the regular service. 

The failure co attract recruits was particularly noticeable in the antiaircraft 

battalions. To obtain black replacements for these critically depleted units, the 

commandant authorized the recruitment of reservists who had served less than 

six months, but the measure failed co produce the necessary manpower. On 28 

February 1946 the commanding general of Camp LeJeune reported that all but 

seven Negroes on his antiaircraft artillery roster were being processed for 

discharge. 13 Since this list included the black noncommissioned instructors, the 

9Ibid., 28 Aug 47, sub: Requirements for General Duty Negro Marines. A0-1. 

IOibid ., 14 Nov 49, sub: Designation of Units for Assignment of Negro Marines, A0-1. 11 For criticism of assignment restrictions, sec comments and questions ar the National Defense Conference 

on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48 (afternoon session), pp. I -10, copy in CMH. 12G-1, Div of Plans and Policies, Operational Diary, Sep 45-0ct 46, 23 Apr 47; Memo, Dir of Personnel 

(Div of Recruiting) for Off in Charge. Northeastern Recruiting Div, 17 Jan 46, sub: Enlistment of Negro ExMarines, MC 706577. Sec also Afro· American, February 16, 1946. 13Msg, CMC to CG, Cp LeJeune, 19 Feb 46, MC 122026; Memo. CG, Cp LeJeune, for CMC. 28 Feb 46, 

sub: Personnel and Equipment for Antiaircraft Artillery Training Battalion (Colored}, Availability of. 

RPS-1059, MC files. 
258 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

commander warned that future training of black marines would entail the use of 

officers as instructors. The precipitous loss of black artillerymen forced Marine 

headquarters to assign white specialists as temporary replacements in the heavy 

antiaircraft artillery groups at Guam and Saipan, both designated as black units 

in the postwar organization.'14 

It was not the fault of the black press if this expression of black indifference 

went unnoticed. The failure of black marines to reenlist was the subject of many 

newspaper and journal articles. The reason for the phenomenon advanced by 

the Norfolk journal and Guzde would be repeated by civil rights spokesmen on 

numerous occasions in the era before integration . The paper declared that 

veterans remembered their wartime experiences and were convinced that the 

same distasteful practices would be continued after the war. 

15 Marine Corps officials advanced different reasons. The Montford Point commander attributed 

slow enlistment rates to a general postwar letdown and lack of publicity, explaining that Montford Point ''had an excellent athletic program, good chow 

and comfortable barracks.'' A staff member of the Division of Plans and Policies 

later prepared a lengthy analysis of the treatment the Marine Corps had received 

in the black press. He charged that the press had presented a distorted picture of 

conditions faced by blacks that had "agitated" the men and turned them 

against reenlistment. He recommended a public relations campaign at Montford Point to improve the corps' image. 16 But this analysis missed the point, for 

while the black press might influence civilians, it could hardly instruct Marine 

veterans. Probably more than any other factor, the wartime treatment of black 

marines explained the failure of the corps to attract qualified, let alone gifted, 

Negroes to its postwar junior enlisted ranks. 

Considering the critical shortages, temporarily and "undesirably" made up 

for by white marines, and the ''leisurely'' rate at which black reservists were 

reenlisting, General Thomas recommended in May 1946 that the corps recruit 

some 1,120 Negroes from civilian sources. This, he explained to the commandant, would accelerate black enlistment but still save some spaces for black 

reservists. 17 The commandant agreed , 

18 and contrary to the staff's expectations, 

most Negroes in the postwar service were new recruits. The mass departure of 

14Memo, G. C. Thomas for Dir of Personnel, 6 Mar 48. sub: Replacements for Enlisted Personnel 

(Colored) Assignment of. Request for. A0-3; Msg. CINCPACIPOA PEARL to CNO. 282232Z Apr 46, MC 

7673~ . MC files. 

I)Norfolkjouma/ a11d Guide, May 4, 1946. Sec also Murray. Negro Yearbook, 1949 pp. 272-73. On the 

general accuracy of the press charges, see Shaw and Donnelly, Blacks i111he Marine Corps, pp. 47-~ I. 16CO. Montford Poinr. Press Conference {ca. I May 47). quoted in Div of Plans and Policies Staff Report. 

"Rescinding Ltr of lnstruclion #421," MC files: unsigned. untitled Memo written in the Division of Plans and 

Policies on black marines and the black press {ca. Aug ~~). 17Memo, Dir. Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC. 3 May 46. sub: Enlisting of Negroes in the Marine Corps 

From Civilian Sources. A0-1. 18Jbid .. 23 Oct 46. sub: Enlisrment of Negroes. 33~- 110: Memo, CMC to Off in Charge, Nonheastern 

Recruiting Div, et al.. 23 Oct 46. sub: Negro Pirst Enlistments, Quota for Month of November, 1946, 

AP- 1231. There was an attempt to stall first enlistment, sec Memo, Dir of Personnel, for Dir. Div of Plans 

and Policies, 17 May 46, sub: Enlisting of Negroes in the Marine Corps From Civilian Sources: but it was overruled, Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies. for Dir of Personnel. 23 May 46. same sub. A0-1. 
THE POSTWAR MARINE CORPS 259 

World War II veterans eloquently expressed the attitude of experienced black 

servicemen toward the Marines' racial policy. 

The word spread quickly among the new black marines. When in mid-1947 

the Division of Plans and Policies was looking for ways to reduce the number of 

black marines in keeping with the modified manpower ceiling, it discovered 

that if offered the opportunity about one-third of all Negroes wou ld apply for 

discharge. An even higher percentage of discharge requests was expected from 

among black marines overseas. The commandant agreed to make the offer, except to the stewards, and in the next six months black strength dropped by 700 

men. 19 

Even the recruitment of stewards did not go according to predictions. 

Thomas had assured the commandant in the spring of 1946 that a concrete offer 

of steward duty to black reservists would produce the 300-man quota for the 

regular corps. He wanted the offer published at all separation centers and a 

training program for stewards instituted at Camp Le)eune. 20 General Vandegrift 

approved the proposal, but a month later the commander of Camp LeJeune 

reported that only three reservists and one regular had volunteered. 21 He advised the commandant to authorize recruitment among qualified civilians. 

Faced with wholesale rejection of such duty by black marines, General Thomas 

in March 1947 opened the Steward's Branch co Negroes with previous military 

service in any of the armed forces and qualifications for such work. 22 This ploy 

also proved a failure. Looking for 250 stewards, the recruiters could find but one 

acceptable applicant in the first weeks of the program. Retreating still further, 

the commandant canceled the requirement for previous military service in 

April, and in October dropped the requirement for " clearly established 

qualifications. "H Apparently the staff would take a chance on any warm body. 

In dropping the requirement for prior military service, the corps introduced 

a complication. Recruits for steward duty would be obliged to undergo basic 

training and their enlistment contracts would read "general duty"; Navy 

regu lations required that subsequent reclassification to "stewards duty only" 

status had to be made at the request of the recruit. In August 1947 three men 

enlisted under the first enlistment program for stewards refused to execute a 

change of enlistment contract after basic training. 24 Although these men could 

1

9Memo. Dir. Div of Plans and Policies. for CMC. 28 May 47, sub: Program for Accelerated Attrition of 

Negro Marines, A0-1; Maj S. M. Adams. ''Additional Directives From Plans and Policies- 3 June 1947." 3 

Jun 47; Speed Ltr, CMC to CG, Marine Corps Air Station. Cherry Point, N.C .. ct al .. 8 May 47. A0- 1; 

Memo. CMC to Depot Quartermaster, Depot of Supplies, 3 Jun 47. sub: Discharge for the Convenience of the 

Government Certain Enlisted Negro Members of the Marine Corps. 070-15-4-17. 

20Mcmo. Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 12 Mar 46, sub: Steward's Branch Personnel. lnforma· 

lion Concerning. A0-3. MC files. 21 Ltr, CG, Cp LeJeune. to CMC. -1 Apr46, sub: Steward's Branch Personnel. 060105 . 22Mcmo. Dir, Div of Plans and Policies. for CMC. 18 Mar 47. sub: Enlistment of Negro Personnel. 

01A7647. 

Blbid .. 16 Apr 47. sub: First Enlistment of Negro Personnel. A0-1, and 9 Oct -17. sub: Procurement and 

Assignment of Stewards Personnel . Box 1515-30; Ltr, CMC (Div of Recruiting) to Off in Charge. North· 

eastern Recruiting Div, 29 Apr 47. sub: Negro First Enlistments. 07 A 11947. 

21Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies. for CMC. 15 Sep 47. sub: Disposition of Negro Personnel Who 

Enlisted With a View Toward Qualifying for Stewards Duties ... , 01A25847. 
260 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

have been discharged "for the good of the service," the commandant decided 

not to contest their right to remain in the general service. This action did not go 

unnoticed, and in subsequent months a number of men who signed up with the 

intention of becoming stewards refused to modify their enlistment contract 

while others, who already had changed their contract, suddenly began to fail the 

qualifying tests for stewards school. 

The possibility of filling the quota became even more distant when in 

September 1947 the number of steward billers was increased to 380. Since only 

57 stewards had signed up in the past twelve months, recruiters now had co find 

some 200 men, at least 44 per month for the immediate future . The commandant, furthermore, approved plans to increase the number of stewards co 420. In 

December the Plans and Policies Division, conceding defeat, recommended chat 

the commandant arrange for the transfer of 175 men from the Navy's oversubscribed Steward's Branch. At the same time, co overcome what the division's 

new director, Brig. Gen. Ray A. Robinson, called "the onus attached to servant 

type duties,'' the commandant was induced to approve a plan making the rank 

and pay of stewards comparable to those of general duty personnel. 2

) 

These measures seemed to work. The success of the transfer program and the 

fact that first enlistments had finally begun co balance discharges led the 

recruiters to predict in March 1948 chat their steward quota would soon be 

filled. Unfortunately, success tempted the planners co overreach themselves. 

Assured of a full steward quota, General Robinson recommended chat approval 

be sought from the Secretary of the Navy to establish closed messes, along with 

the requisite steward billets, at the shore quarters for bachelor officers 

overseas. 26 Approval brought another rise in the number of steward billers, this 

time to 580, and required a first-enlistment goal of twenty men per monthY 

The new stewards, however, were nor forthcoming. After three months of 

recruiting the corps had netted ten men, more than offset by trainees who failed 

to qualify for steward school. Concluding chat the failures represented to a great 

extent a scheme to remain in general service and evade the ceiling on general 

enlistment, the planners wanted the men failing to qualify discharged "for the 

good of the service. " 28 

The lack of recruits for steward duty and constant pressure by stewards for 

transfer to general duty troubled the Marine Corps throughout the postwar 

period. Reviewing the problem in December 194 8, the commanding general of 

~1bid., 26 Dec 47, sub: Procurement of Steward Personnel. A0-1; sec also Ln. CMC to Chid of Naval 

Personnel, 6 Jan 48, sub: Discharge of Steward Personnel From Navy to Enlist in the Marine Corps, MC 

967879; Memo, Chief of Naval Personnel for CMC, 28 Jan 48, sub: Discharge of Certain Steward Branch Per· 

sonncl for Purpose of Enlistment in the Marine Corps. 2

6Mcmo. Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 19 Mar 48, sub: Procurement and Distribution of 

Steward Person ncl, A0-1 . 271bid., 12 Aug 48, sub: Steward Personnel. Allowances and Procurement, A0-1; Ltr, CMC tO CG, 

Marine Barracks. Cp LeJeune, 16 Aug 48. sub: Negro Recruits, OIA22948. 2

8Memo, Dir. Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, I) Oct 48. sub: Disposition of Negro Personnel Who 

Enlist "For Steward Duty Only" and Subsequently Fail to Qualify for Such Duty, Study #169-48; Ltr, QMG 

of MC to CMC, 17 Sep 48, same sub, CA6. 
THE POSTWAR MARINE CORPS 261 

Camp LeJeune saw three causes: "agitation from civilian sources," which 

labeled steward duty degrading servant's work; lack of rapid promotion; and 

badgering from black marines on regular duty. 29 But the commander's solution-a public relations campaign using black recruits to promote the attractions of steward duty along with a belated promise of more rapid promotion-failed. It ignored the central issue, the existence of a segregated b~anch in 

which black marines performed menial, nonmilitary duties. 

Headquarters later resorted to other expedients. It obtained seventy-five 

more men from the Navy and lowered the qualification test standards for 

steward duty. But like earlier efforts, these steps also failed to produce enough 

men.

30 Ironically, while the corps aroused the ire of the civil rights groups by 

maintaining a segregated servants' branch, it was never able to attract a sufficient number of stewards to fill its needs in the postwar period. 

Many of the corps' critics saw in the buildup of the Steward's Branch the first 

step in an attempt to eliminate Negroes from the general service. If such a 

scheme had ever been contemplated, it was remarkably unsuccessful, for the 

corps would enter the Korean War with most of its Negroes still in the general 

service. Nevertheless, the apprehension of the civil rights advocates was 

understandable because during most of the postwar period enlistment in the 

general service was barred to Negroes or limited to a very small number of men. 

Closed to Negroes in early 1947, enlistment was briefly reopened at the rate of 

forty men per month later that year to provide the few hundred extra men called 

for in the reorganization of the Operating Force Plan. 31 Enlistment was again 

opened in May 1948 when the recruiting office established a monthly quota for 

black recruits at ten men for general duty and eight for the Steward's Branch. 

The figure for stewards quickly rose to thirty per month, but effective 1 May 

1949 the recruitment of Negroes for general service was closed. 32 

These rapid changes, indeed the whole pattern of black enlistment in the 

postwar Marine Corps, demonstrated that the staff's manpower practices were 

out of joint with the times. Not only did they invite attack from the increasingly 

vocal civil rights forces, but they also fostered a general distrust among black 

marines themselves and among those young Negroes the corps hoped to attract. 

Segregation and Efficiency 

The assignment policies and recruitment practices of the corps were the inevitable result of its segregation policy. Prejudice and discrimination no doubt 

aggravated the situation, but the policy of separation limited the ways Negroes 

29Msg. CG, Cp LeJeune, N.C .• to CMC. 31 Dec 48. 

3°Memo, Chief of Naval Personnel and CMC for All Shjps and Stations. 28 Feb 49. sub: Discharge of 

Stewards, USN, For the Purpose of Immediate Enlistment io Marine Corps, Pers-66, GenRecsNav; Memo, 

CMC for Dir of Recruiting, 2~ Feb 49. sub: Mental Requirements for Enlistment for "Steward Duty Only." 

A0- 1; Ltr, CMC (Div of Recruiting) to Off in Charge, Northeastern Recruiting Div, 3 Mar 49. sub: Mental 

Standards for Enlistment for Steward Duty Only, MC1088081; Msg, CMC to Div of Recruiting, 7 Apr 49. 

31Memo, CMC for CG. Marine Barracks. Cp LeJeune, N.C., 8 Dec 47, sub: Negro Recruits, 01A33847. 

HLtr, CMC to CG. Cp LeJeune. 24 May 48, A0-1; Memo, CMC for Off in Charge of Recruiting Div, 29 

Jan 49, sub: Enlistment of Negroes, 07Dl4848; Msg. CMC to Offs in Charge of Recruiting Divs, 25 Apr 49. 
262 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

could be employed and places to which they might be assi~ned. Segregation explained, for example, why Negroes were traditionally employed in certain types 

of combat units, and why, when changing missions and manpower restrictions 

caused a reduction in the number of such units, Negroes were not given other 

combat assignments. Most Negroes with combat military occupational 

specialties served in defense battalions during World War II. These units, 

chiefly antiaircraft artillery, were self-contained and could therefore be 

segregated; at the same time they cloaked a large group of men with the dignity 

of a combat assignment. But what was possible during the war was no longer 

practical and efficient in the postwar period. Some antiaircraft artillery units survived the war, but they no longer operated as battalions and were divided instead into battery-size organizations that simply could not be segregated in 

terms of support and recreational facilities. In fact, the corps found it impossible 

after the war to maintain segregation in any kind of combat unit. 

Even if segregated service had been possible, the formation of all-black amiaircraft artillery battalions would have been precluded by the need of chis highly 

technical branch for so many kinds of trained specialists. Not only would 

separate training facilities for the few Negroes in the peacetime corps be impossibly expensive and inefficient, but not enough black recruits were eligible 

for such training. A wartime comparison of the General Classification Test and 

Mechanical Aptitude Test scores of the men in the 52d Defense Battalion with 

those of men in two comparable white units showed the Negroes averaging considerably lower than the whites. 33 It was reasonable to expect this difference to 

continue since, on the whole, black recruits were scoring lower than their World 

War II counterpartS. 34 Under current policies, therefore, the Marine Corps saw 

little choice but to exclude Negroes from antiaircraft artillery and other combat 

units. 

Obviously the corps had in its ranks some Negroes capable of performing 

any cask required in an artillery battalion. Yet because the segregation policy 

demanded that there be enough qualified men to form and sustain a whole 

black battalion, the abilities of these high-scoring individuals were wasted. On 

the other hand, many billets in antiaircraft artillery or other types of combat 

battalions could be filled by men with low test scores, but less gifted black 

marines were excluded because they had to be assigned to one of the few black 

units. Segregation, in short, was doubly inefficient, it kept both able and inferior Negroes out of combat units that were perpetually short of men. 

Segregation also promoted inefficiency in the placement of black Marine 

units. While the assignment of an integrated unit with a few black marines 

would probably go unnoticed in most naval districts- witness the experience of 

Hltr. CO, 52d Defense Battalion. to CMC, 15 Jan 46, sub: Employment of Colored Personnel as Antiair· 

craft Artillery Troops, Recommendations on, 02-46, MC files. 

}

4

Memo, Dir of Personnel for Dir, Div of Plans and Policies. 21 Jul 48, sub: General Classification Test 

Scores of Colored Enlisted Marines, 07DZ0348. The GCT distribution of 991 black marines as of I March 1948 

was as follows: Group I (130-163). 0%; Group II (110-129). 4.94%; Group III (90-109). 24.7%; Group IV 

(60-89). 61.45%; and Group V (42-59). 9.54 %. Memo. Dir of Personnel to Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, 

30 May 48, sub: Marines-Tests and Testing. 
THE POSTWAR MARINE CORPS 263 

the Navy itself-the task of finding a naval district and an American community 

where a large segregated group of black marines could be peacefully assimilated 

was infinitely more difficult. 

The original postwar racial program called for the assignment of black security units to the Marine Barracks at McAlester, Oklahoma, and Earle, New 

Jersey. Noting that the station was in a strict Jim Crow area where recreational 

facilities for Negroes were limited and distant, the commanding officer of the 

Marine Barracks at McAlester recommended that no Negroes be assigned. He 

reminded the commandant that guard duty required marines to question and 

apprehend white civilian employees, a fact that would add to the racial tension 

in the area. His conclusions, no doubt shared by commanders in many parts of 

the country, summed up the problem of finding assignments for black marines: 

any racial incident which might arise out of disregard for local racial custom, he 

wrote, 

would cause the Marine Corps to become involved by protecting such personnel as required by Federal law and Navy Regulations. It is believed that if one such potential incident occurred, it would seriously jeopardize the standing of the Marine Corps 

throughout the Southwest. To my way of thinking, the Marine Corps is not now maintaining the high esteem of public opinion, or gaining in prestige, by the manner in 

which its uniform and insignia are subjected to such laws. The uniform does not count, 

it is relegated to the background and made to participate in and suffer the restrictions 

and limitations placed upon it by virtue of the wearer being subject to tbe Jim Crow Jaws.3~ 

The commander of the McAlester ammunition depot endorsed this recommendation, adding that Oklahoma was a "border" state where the Negro was 

not accepted as in the north nor understood and tolerated as in the south. This 

argument moved the Director of Plans and Policies to recommend that 

McAlester be dropped and the black unit sent instead to Port Chicago, California. 36 With the approval of the commandant and the Chief of Naval Operations, plans for the assignment were well under way in June 1947 when the commandant of the Twelfth Naval District intervened .

37 The presence of a black 

unit, he declared, was undesirable in a predominantly white area that was experiencing almost constant labor turmoil. The possibility of clashes between 

white pickets and black guards would invite racial conflict. His warnings carried 

the day, and Port Chicago was dropped in favor of the Marine Barracks, Naval 

Shipyard, Brooklyn, New York, with station at Bayonne, New Jersey. At the 

same time, because of opposition from naval officials, the plan for assigning 

Negroes to Earle, New Jersey, was also dropped, and the commandant launched 

35Ltr, CO, MB, NAD, McAlester, Okla .. to CMC,) Nov 46, sub: Assignmem of Colored Marines, 238). 

36Ltr, CO, NAD, McAlester. Okla., to CMC, ) Nov 46, 1st lnd to Ltr, CO, MB, McAlester, 238); Memo, 

Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 3 Dec 46, sub: Assignmem of Negro Marines to MB, Naval 

Ma~azinc, Port Chicago, Calif., in lieu of MB, NAD, McAlester, Okla. , A0-1. 7Memo, CMC for CNO, 3 Dec 46. sub: Assignment of Negro Marines to MB, Naval Magazine, Port 

Chicago, Calif., and MB, NAD, Earle, N.J., A0-1; idem for CO. MB, NAD, Earle, N.J., 9 Jan 47, sub: 

Assignment of Colored Marines to Marine Barracks, Naval Ammunition Depot, Earle, N.J.; idem for CO, 

Department of the Pacific, and CO. MB. NAD. McAlester. Okla., A0-1; Memo. CNO for CMC. 6 Jan 47. 

same sub, OP 30M. 
264 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

inquiries about the depots at Hingham, Massachusetts, and Fort Mifflin, Pennsylvania. 38 

Fore Mifflin agreed to take fifty black marines, but several officials objected 

to the proposed assignment to Hingham. The Marine commander, offering 

what he called his unbiased opinion in the best interests of the service, explained in considerable detail why he thought the assignment of Negroes would 

jeopardize the fire-fighting ability of the ammunition depot. The commanding 

officer of the naval depot endorsed these reasons and added that assigning black 

marines to guard duty that included vehicle search would create a problem in industrial relations. 39 The commandant of the First Naval District apparemly discounted these arguments, but he too voted against the assignment of Negroes 

on the grounds that the Hingham area lacked a substantial black population, 

was largely composed of restricted residential neighborhoods, and was a major 

summer resort on which the presence of black units would have an adverse effect. 0 

The commander of the Naval Base, New York, meanwhile had refused to 

approve a plan to assign a black unit to Bayonne, New Jersey, and suggested 

that it be sent to Earle, New Jersey, instead because there the unit "presented 

fewer problems and difficulties than at any other Naval activity." The commander noted that stationing Negroes at Bayonne would necessitate a certain 

amount of integration in mess and ship service facilities. Bayonne was also 

reputed to have the toughest gate duty in the New York area, and noncommissioned officers had to supervise a white civilian police force. At Earle, on the 

other hand, the facilities were completely separate, and although some complaints from well-to-do summer colonists in the vicinity could be expected, men 

could be bused to Newark or Jersey City for recreation. Moreover, Earle could 

absorb a 175-man unit. 41 But chief of the Navy's Bureau of Ordnance wamed to 

retain white marines at Earle because a recent decision to handle ammonium 

nitrate fertilizer there made it unwise to relieve the existing trained detachment. 

Earle was also using comract stevedores and expected to be using Army troops 

whose use of local facilities would preclude plans for a segregated barracks and 

mess.~ 2 

The commandant accepted these arguments and on 20 August 1947 revoked 

the assignment of a black unit to Earle. Still, with its ability to absorb 175 men 

3

8

Specd Ltr, CMC to Cmdt, Twelfth Naval District, 12 Jun 47; Memo. CMC for CO, MB, Naval Shipyard, 

Brooklyn. N.Y .• 13 Jun 47. sub: Assignment of Negro Marines to Second Guard Company, Marine Barracks 

Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn. N.Y .. A0-1; idem for CO. MB, USNAD, Hingham. Mass .• 18 Jun 47, sub: 

Assignment of Negro Marines, A0- 1; Speed Ltr, CMC to Cmdt, Twelfth Naval District, 18 Jun 47, 

OIA76847; Memo, CMC for CO. MB. NAD, Ft. Mifflin, Pa., 18 Jun 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines. 

A0-1; Memo, Cmdt, Fourth Naval District for CO. MB. NAD. Ft. Mifflin, Pa .. 18 Jun 47. same sub. 

39Memo, CO, MB. NAD, Hingham, Mass .. forCMC. 26 Jun47, sub: Comments on Assignment of Negro 

Marines. AB-1 ; Memo, CO, NAD, Hingham, Mass .. forCMC, 26 Jun 47, 1st lnd to AB-1, 26 Jun 47. 40Ltr, Cmdt, First Naval District, to CMC. 30 Jun 47. sub: Assignment of Negro Marines, 2d lnd to AB-1. 

26Jun47. 

41Ltr, CO. Naval Base, New York, to CMC. 10 July 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines to Second 

Guard Company, Marine Barracks, New York Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn. N.Y .. NB- 1)9. 42Ltr, Chief. Bur of Ord, to CNO, II Aug 47, sub: Naval Ammunition Depot, Earle, N.J.-Assignment 

of Negro Marine Complement, NTI-34. 
THE POSTWAR MARINE CORPS 265 

and its relative suitability in terms of separate living facilities, the depot remained a prime candidate for black units, and in November General Vandegrift 

reversed himself. The Chief of Naval Operations supported the commandant's 

decision over the renewed objections of the Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance. 43 

With Hingham, Massachusetts, ruled out, the commandant now considered the 

substitution of Marine barracks at Trinidad, British West Indies; Scotia, New 

York; and Oahu, Hawaii. He rejected Trinidad in favor of Oahu, and officials in 

Hawaii proved amenable. 44 

The chief of the Navy's Bureau of Supplies and Accounts objected to the use 

of black marines at the supply depot in Scotia, claiming that such an assignment 

to the Navy's sole installation in upper New York State would bring about a 

"weakening of the local public relations advantage now held by the Navy" and 

would be contrary to the Navy's best interests. He pointed out that the assignment would necessitate billeting white marine graves registration escorts and 

black marines in the same squad rooms. The use of black marines for firing 

squads at funerals, he thought, would be "undesirable." He also pointed out 

that the local black population was small, making for extremely limited recreational and social opportunities. 45 The idea of using Scotia with all these attendant inconvenience~ was quietly dropped, and the black marines were finally 

assigned to Earle, New Jersey; Fort Mifflin, Pennsylvania; and Oahu, Hawaii. 

Approved on 8 November 1946, the postwar plan to assign black units to 

security guard assignments in the United States was not fully put into practice 

until 15 August 1948, almost two years later. This episode in the history of 

discrimination against Americans in uniform brought little glory to anyone involved and revealed much about the extent of race prejudice in American 

society. It was an indictment of people in areas as geographically diverse as 

Oklahoma, New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey who objected to the 

assignment of black servicemen to their communities. It was also an indictment 

of a great many individual commanders, both in the Navy and Marine Corps, 

some perhaps for personal prejudices, others for so readily bowing to community prejudices. But most of all the blame must fall on the Marine Corps' 

policy of segregation. Segregation made it necessary to find assignments for a 

whole enlisted complement and placed an intolerable adminiStrative burden on 

the corps. The dictum that black marines could not deal with white civilians, 

especially in situations in which they would give orders, further limited 

assignments since such duties were routine in any security unit. Thus, bound to 

a policy that was neither just nor practical, the cOmmandant spent almost two 

years trying to place four hundred men. 

43Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 19 Nov 47, sub: First Enlistments of Negro Personnel, 

A0- 1; Memo, Chief, Bur of Ord , for CNO, 15 Dec 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines at Naval Ammuni· 

tion Depot, Earle. Red Bank, N.J.; Memo, CNO for Chief, Bur of Ord, 6 Jan 48, same sub. 44

Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies. 29 Jul 47, sub: Negro Requirements and Assignments, A0-1 , MC 

files. 

45Memo, Chief, Bur of Supplies and Accounts, for CNO, 14 Oct 47. sub: Assignment of Negro Marines. 

P- 16- 1; Memo, CNO to CMC, 20 Nov 47. same sub, Op 415 D. 
266 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Despite the obvious inefficiency and discrimination involved, the commandant, General Vandegrift, adamantly defended the Marine segregation policy 

before Secretary of the Navy Forrestal. Wartime experience showed, he maintained, oblivious to overwhelming evidence to the contrary since 1943, "that 

the assignment of negro Marines to separate units promotes harmony and 

morale and fosters the competitive spirit essential co the development of a high 

esprit. " 46 His stand was bound to antagonize the civil rights camp; the black 

press in particular trumpeted the theme that the corps was as full of race 

discrimination as it had been during the warY 

Toward Integration 

But even as the commandant defended the segregation policy, the corps was 

beginning to yield to pressure from out~ide forces and the demands of military 

efficiency. The first policy breach concerned black officers. Although a proposal 

for commissions had been rejected when the subject was first raised in 1944, 

three black candidates were accepted by the officer training school at Quantico 

in April 1945. One failed to qualify on physical and cwo on scholastic grounds, 

but they were followed by five other Negroes who were still in training on V-J 

day. One of chis group, Frederick Branch of Charlotte, North Carolina, elected 

to stay in training through the demobilization period. He was commissioned 

with his classmates on 10 November 1945 and placed in the inactive reserves. 

Meanwhile, three Negroes in the V-12 program graduated and received commissions as second lieutenants in the inactive Marine Corps Reserve. Officer 

training for all these men was incegraced.48 

The first Negro to obtain a regular commission in che Marine Corps was John 

E. Rudder of Paducah, Kentucky, a Marine veteran and graduate of the Naval 

Reserve Officers' Training Corps. Analyzing the case for the commandant in 

May 1948, the Director of Plans and Policies noted chat the law did not require 

the Marine Corps co commission Rudder, but chat he was only the first of several 

Negroes who would be applying for commissions in the next few years through 

the Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps. Since the reserve corps program was 

a vital part of the plan to expand Marine Corps officer strength, rejecting a 

graduate on account of race, General Robinson warned, might jeopardize the 

entire plan. He thought chat Rudder should be accepted for duty. Rudder was 

appointed a second lieutenant in the Regular Marine Corps on 28 May 1948 and 

ordered to Quantico for basic schooling. 49 In 1949 Lieutenant Rudder resigned. 

Indicative of the changing civil rights scene was che apprehension shown by 

some Marine Corps officials about 'public reaction co the resignation. But 

although Rudder reponed instances of discrimination ac Quantico-scemminR 

46Memo, Gen Vandegrift to SecNav. 2) Aug 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines. 54-1-29, 

GenRccsNav. 47See, for example, the analysis that appeared in the Chicago Defmder. August 14. 1948. 

48Shaw and Donnelly, Blacks a11d the Mari11e Corps, pp. 47-48; sec also Selective Service System, Special 

GrouPs (Monograph 10). 1:105. 

4

l>Memo. Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, II May 48, sub: Appointment to Commissioned Rank 

in the Regular Marine Corps. Case of Midshipman John Earl Rudder, A0-1; see also Dept of Navy Press 

Release. 25 Aug 48. 
THE POSTWAR MARINE CORPS 267 

for the most part from a lack of 

military courtesy that amounted to 

outright ostracism-he insisted his 

decision to resign was based on personal reasons and was irreversible. 

The Director of Public Information 

was anxious to release an official version of the resignation, 50 but other 

voices prevailed, and Rudder's exit 

from the corps was handled quietly 

both at headquarters and in the 

press. 51 

The brief active career of one 

black officer was hardly evidence of a 

great racial reform, but it represented 

a significant breakthrough because .it 

affirmed the practice of integrated officer training and established the right 

LIEUTENANT AND MRS. BRANCH Of Negroes to command. And Rudder 

was quickly followed by other black 

officer candidates, some of whom made careers in the <;:orps. Rudder's appointment marked a permanent change in Marine Corps policy. 

Enlistment of black women marked another change. Negroes had been excluded from the Women's Reserve during World War II, but in March 1949 

A. Philip Randolph asked the commandant, in the name of the Committee 

Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training, if black women could join 

the corps. The commandant's reply was short and direct: "If qualified for enlistment, negro women will be accepted on the same basis as other applicants. " 52 

In September 1949 Annie N. Graham and Ann E. Lamb reported to Parris 

Island for integrated training and subsequent assignment. 

Yet another racial change, in the active Marine Corps Reserve, could be 

traced to outside pressure. Until 1947 all black reservists were assigned to inactive and unpaid volunteer reserve status, and applications for transfer to active 

units were usually disapproved by commanding officers on grounds that such 

transfers would cost the unit a loss in whites. Rejections did not halt applications, however, and in May 1947 the Director of Marine Corps Reserve decided 

to seek a policy decision. While he wanted each commander of an active unit 

left free to decide whether he would take Negroes, the director also wanted units 

with black enlisted men formed in the organized reserve, all-black voluntary 

training units recognized, and integrated active duty training provided for reserMcmo , Dir of Public Information for CMC, 11 Feb 49. sub: Publicity on Second Lieutenant John Rudder, USMC, AG 1364; see also Ltr, Lt Cmdr Dennis Nelson to James C. Evans, 24 Feb 70, CMH files. 

HMcmo, Oliver Smith for CMC, 11 Feb 49, with attached CMC note. 

52Ltr, A. Philip Randolph to Gen C. B. Cates, 8 Mar49; Ltr, CMC to Randolph. 10 Mar 49. AW 828. 
268 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

vises. H A group of Negroe's in Chicago had already applied for the formation of 

a black voluntary training unit. 

General Thomas, Director of Plans and Policies, was not prepared to go the 

whole way. He agreed that within certain limitations the local commander 

should decide on the integration of black reservists into an active unit, and he 

accepted integrated active. duty training. But he rejected the formation of black 

units in the organized reserve and the voluntary training program; the latter 

because it would "inevitably lead to the necessity for Negro officers and for 

authorizing drill pay" in order to avoid charges of discrimination. Although 

Thomas failed to explain why black officers and drill pay were unacceptable or 

how rejecting the program would save the corps from charges of discrimination, 

his recommendations were approved by the commandant over the objection of 

the Reserve Division. }

4 But the Director of Reserves rejoined that volunteer 

training units were organized under corps regulations, the Chicago group had 

met all the specifications, and the corps would be su·bject to just criticism if it 

refused co form the unit. On the other hand, by permitting the formation of 

some all-black volunteer units, the corps might satisfy the wish of Negroes to be 

a part of the reserve and thus avoid any concerted attempt to get the corps to 

form all-black units in the organized reserve. 55 

At chis point the Division of Plans and Policies offered co compromise. 

General Robinson recommended chat when the number of volunteers so warranted, the corps should form black units of company size or greater, either 

separate or organic to larger reserve units around the country. He remained opposed to integrated units, explaining chat experience proved-he neglected to 

mention what experience, certainly none in the Marine Corps-that integrated 

units served neither the best interests of the individual nor the corps. 56 While 

the commandant's subsequent approval set the stage for the formation of racially composite units in the reserve, the stipulation that the black element be of 

company size or larger effectively limited the degree of reform. 

The development of composite units in the reserve paralleled a far more 

significant development in the active forces. In 194 7 the Marine Corps began 

organizing such units along the lines established in the postwar Army. Like the 

Army, the corps discovered that maintaining a quota-even when the quota for 

the corps meant maintaining a minimum number of Negroes in the service-in 

a period of shrinking manpower resources necessitated the creation of new 

billets for Negroes. At the same time it was obviously inefficient to assign 

combat-trained Negroes, now surplus with the inactivation of the black defense 

battalions, to black service and supply units when the Fleet Marine Force battalions were so seriously understrengch. Thus the strictures against integration 

HMemo, Dir, Div of Reserve. for CMC, 6 May 47, sub: General Policy Governing Negro ReserviSIS, AF 

1271· Lrr, William Griffin to CMC, 3 Mar 47: Ltr, Col R. Me Pate to William Griffin, II Mar47. 

Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 7 May 47, sub: General Policy Governing Negro Reserv· 

im, A0- 1. 55Memo, Dir of Reserve for CMC, 15 May 47, sub: General Policy Concerning Negro Reservists, AF 394. 

56Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 1 Mar 48, sub: Enlistment of Negro Ex·Marines in 

Organized Reserve, A0-1. 
THE POSTWAR MARINE CORPS 

notwithstanding, the corps was forced 

to begin attaching black units to the 

depleted Fleq Marine Force units. In 

January 1947, for example, members of 

Headquarters Unit, Montford Point 

Camp, and men of the inactivated 3d 

Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion were 

transferred to Camp Geiger, North 

Carolina, and assigned to the aU-black 

2d Medium Depot Company, which, 

along with eight white units, was 

organized into the racially composite 2d 

Combat Service Group in the 2d Marine 

Division.57 Although the units of the 

group ate in separate mess halls and 

slept in separate barracks, inevitably the 

men of all units used some facilities in 

common. After Negroes were assigned 

to Camp Geiger, for instance, recreational facilities were open to all. In 

some isolated cases, black noncommis269 

TRAINING EXERCISES. Black Marine 

unit boards ship at Morehead City, 

North Carolina, 1949. 

sioned officers were assigned to lead 

racially mixed details in the composite group .58 

But these reforms, which did very little for a very few men, scarcely dented 

the Marine Corps' racial policy. Corps officials were still firmly committed to 

strict segregation in 1948, and change seemed very distant. Any substantial 

modification in racial policy would require a revolution against Marine tradition, a movement dictated by higher civilian authority or touched off by an 

overwhelming military need. 

HUSMC Muster Rolls, 1947. 

)

8Jmc:rv, Martin Blumenson with 1st Sgt Jerome Pressley. 21 Feb 66, CMH files. 
CHAPTER 11 

The Postwar Air Force 

The Air Force was a new service in 1947, but it was also heir to a long tradition of segregation. Most of its senior officers, trained in the Army, firmly supported the Army's policy of racially separate units and racial quotas. And 

despite continuing objections to what many saw as the Gillem Board's far too 

progressive proposals, the Air Force adopted the Army's postwar racial policy as 

its own. Yet after less than two years as an independent service the Air Force in 

late 1948 stood on the threshold of integration. 

This sudden change in attitude was not so much the result of humanitarian 

promptings by service officials, although some of them forcibly demanded 

equal treatment and opportunity. Nor was it a response to civil rights activists, 

although Negroes in and outside the Air Force continued to exert pressure for 

change. Rather, integration was forced upon the service when the inefficiency of 

its racial practices could no longer be ignored. The inefficiency of segregated 

troops was less noticeable in the Army, where a vast number of Negroes could 

serve in a variety of expandable black units, and in the smaller Navy, where only 

a few Negroes had specialist ratings and most black sailors were in the separate 

Steward's Branch. But the inefficiency of separatism was plainly evident in the 

Air Force. 

Like the Army, the Air Force had its share of service units to absorb the 

marginal black airman, but postwar budget restrictions had made the enlargement of service units difficult to justify. At the same time, the Gillem Board 

policy as well as outside pressures had made it necessary to include a black air 

unit in the service's limited number of postwar air wings. However socially 

desirable two air forces might seem to most officials, and however easy it had 

been to defend them as a wartime necessity, it quickly became apparent that 

segregation was, organizationally at least, a waste of the Air Force's few black 

pilots and specialists and its relatively large supply of unskilled black recruits. 

Thus, the inclination to integrate was mostly pragmatic; notably absent were the 

idealistic overtones sounded by the Navy's Special Programs Unit during the 

war. Considering the magniwde of the Air Force problem, it was probably just 

as well that efficiency rather than idealism became the keynote of change. On a 

percentage basis the Air Force had almost as many Negroes as the Army and, no 

doubt, a comparable level of prejudice among its commanders and men. At the 

same time, the Air Force was a new service, its organization still fluid and its 

policies subject to rapid modification. In such circumstances a straightforward 

appeal to efficiency had a chance to succeed where an idealistic call for justice 

and fair play might well have floundered. 
THE POSTWAR AIR FORCE 271 

Segregation and Effic£ency 

Many officials in the Army Air Forces had defended segregated unid' during 

the war as an efficient method of avoiding dangerous social conflicts and utilizing low-scoring recruits. 1 General Arnold himself repeatedly warned against 

bringing black officers and white enlisted men together. Unless strict unit 

segregation was imposed, such contacts would be inevitable, given the Air 

Forces' highly mobile training and operations structure. 2 But if segregation 

restricted contacts between the races it also imposed a severe administrative 

burden on the wartime Air Forces. It especially affected the black flying units 

because it ordained that not only pilots but the ground support 

specialists-mechanics, supply clerks, armorers-- had to be black. Throughout 

most of the war the Air Forces, competing with the rest of .the Army for skilled 

and high-scoring Negroes, was unable to fill the needs of its black air units. At a 

time when the Air Forces enjoyed a surplus of white air and ground crews, the 

black fighter units suffered from a shortage of replacements for their combat 

veterans, a situation as inefficient as it was damaging to morale. 3 

The shortage was compounded in the penultimate year of the war when the 

all-black 477th Bombardment Group was organized . (Black airmen and civil 

rights spokesmen complained that restricting Negroes to fighter units excluded 

them from many important and prestigious types of air service.) In the end the 

new bombardment group only served to limit black participation in the air war. 

Already short of black pilots, the Army Air Forces now had to find black 

navigators and bombardiers as well, thereby intensifying the competition for 

qualified black cadets. The stipulation that pilots and bombardiers for the new 

unit be trained at segregated Tuskegee was another obvious cause for the 

repeated delays in the operational date of the 477th, and its crews were finally 

assembled only weeks before the end of the war. Competition for black bomber 

crews also led to a ludicrous situation in which men highly quaified for pilot 

training according to their stanine scores (achievements on the battery of qualifying tests taken by all applicants for flight service) were sent instead to 

navigator-bomber training, for which they were only barely qualified.4 

Unable to obtain enough Negroes qualified for flight uaining, the Army Air 

Forces asked the Ground and Service Forces to screen their personnel for suitable 

candidates, but a screening early in 194 5 produced only about one-sixth of the 

men needed. Finally, the Air Forces recommended that the Army staff lower the 

General Classification Test score for pilot training from 110 to 100, a recommendation the Service and Ground Forces opposed because such a move would 

1

For a comprehensive and authoritative account of the Negro in the Army Air Forces during World War II, 

see Osur's Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War II. 2

See Memo, CSI AC for G-3. 31 May 40. sub: Employment of Negro Personnel in the Air Corps Units, 

G-3/6541-Gen 527. 

3For the effect on unit morale, see Charles E. Francis. The Tuskegee Airmen: The Story oj the Negro in the 

U.S. Air Force (Boston: Bruce Humphries. 1955), p. 164; see also USAF Oral History Program, Interview with 

Lt Gcn B. 0. Davis, Jr., Jan 73. 

4Lee, Employmetll oj Negro Troops, pp. 462-64; see also lnterv, author with lt Gcn Benjamin 0. Davis, 

Jr., 12 Jun 70, CMH files. 
272 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

DAMAGE lNSPECflON. A squadron operations officer of the 332d Fighter Group 

points out a cannon hole to grottnd crew, Italy, 1945. 

eventually mean the mass transfer of high-scoring Negroes to the Air Forces, 

thus depriving the Service and Ground Forces of their proportionate share. 

Although the Secretary of War approved the Air Forces proposal, the change 

came too late to affect the shortage of black pilots and specialists before the end 

of the war. 

While short of skilled Negroes, the Army Air Forces was being inundated 

with thousands of undereducated and unskilled Negroes from Selective Service. 

lt tried to absorb these recruits, as it absorbed some of its white draftees, by 

creating a great number of service and base security battalions. A handy solution 

to the wartime quota problem, the large segregated units eventually caused considerable racial tension. Some of the tension might have been avoided had black 

officers commanded black squadrons, a logical course since the Air Force had a 

large surplus of nonrated black officers stationed at Tuskegee. ~ Most were 

without permanent assignment or were assigned such duties as custodial responsibility for bachelor officer quarters, occupations unrelated to their specialties.6 

Few of these idle black officers commanded black service units because the 

units were scattered worldwide while the nonrated officers were almost always 

assigned to the airfield at Tuskegee. Approximately one-third of the Air Forces' 

1,559 black officers were starioned at Tuskegee in June 1945. Most others were 

assigned to the fighter group in the Mediterranean theater or the new 

bombardment group in flight training at Godman Field, Kentucky. Only 

~A nonrated officer is one not having or requiring a currently effective acronaucical racing; that is, an officer who is not a pilot. navigator, or bombardier. 6Jmerv. author with Davis; sec also Osur'sBI11clu in the Army Air Forces During World W11r 1/, ch. V. 
THE POSTWAR AIR FORCE 273 

twenty-five black officers were serving at other stations in the United States. The 

Second, Third, and Fourth Air Forces and I Troop Carrier Command, for 

example, had a combined total of seventeen black officers as against 22,938 

black enlisted men. 7 Col. Noel F. Parrish, the wartime commander at Tuskegee, 

explained that the principal reason for this restriction was the prevailing fear of 

social conflict. If assigned to other bases, black officers might try to use the 

officers' clubs and other base facilities. Thus, despite the surplus of black 

officers only too evident at Tuskegee, their requests for transfer to other bases 

for assignment in their rating were usually denied on the grounds that the 

overall shortage of black officers made their replacement impossible. 8 

Fearing trouble between black and white officers and assuming that black 

airmen preferred white officers, the Air Forces assigned white officers to 

command black squadrons. Actually, such assignments courted morale 

problems and worse because they were extremely unpopular with both officers 

and men. Moreover, the Air Forces eventually had to admit that there was a 

tendency to assign white offic·ers I' of mediocre caliber'' to black squadrons. 9 Yet 

few assignments demanded greater leadership ability, for these officers were 

burdened not only with the usual problems of a unit commander but also with 

the complexities of race relations. If they disparaged their troops, they failed as 

commanders; if they fought for their men, they were dismissed by their 

superiors as "pro-Negro." Consequently, they were generally a harassed and 

bewildered lot, bitter over their assignments and bad for troop morale. 10 

The social problems predicted for integration proved inevitable under 

segregation . Commanders found it prohibitively expensive to provide separate 

but equal facilities, and without them discrimination became more obvious. 

The walk-in protest at the Freeman Field Officers Club was but one of the 

natural consequences of segregation rules. And such demonstrations were only 

the more spectacular problems. Just as time-consuming and perhaps more of a 

burden were the many administrative difficulties. The Air Transport Command 

admitted in 1946 that it was too expensive to maintain, as the command was 

obligated to do, separate and equal housing and messing, including separate 

orderly and dayrooms for black airmen. At the same time it complained of the 

disproportionately high percentage of black troops violating military and civil 

law. Although Negroes accounted for 20 percent of the command's troops, they 

committed more than 50 percent of its law infractions. The only connection the 

command was able to make between the separate, unequal facilities and the 

high misconduct rate was to point out chat, while it had done its best to provide 

for Negroes, they '

1 had not earned a very enviable record by themselves. '' 11 

7" Summary of AAF Post· War Surveys." prepared by Noel Parrish. copy in NAACP Collection. library of 

eon;,ress. 

Noel F. Parrish, "The Segregation of the Negro in the Army Air Forces." thesis submitted to the USAF 

Air Command and Stall School, Ma.xwcll Al'l$, Ala .. 1947, pp. 50-55. 9Ltr, Hq AAF, to CG. Tactical Training Cmd, 21 Aug 42, sub: Professional Qualities of Officers Assigned 

to Negro Units, 220.765- 3, AFSHRC. 10Parrish, " Segregation of the Negro in the Army Air Forces," pp. 50- 55. The many difficulties involved 

in the assignment of white officers to black units arc discussed in Osur'sBiacks in1he Army Air Forces During lf/orld lf/arll, ch Y. 11 AAF Transport Cmd. "History oft he Command, I July 1946-31 December 1946" pp. 120- 26. 
274 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

In one crucial five-month period of 

the war, Army Air Forces headquarters 

processed twenty-two separate staff actions involving black troops. 12 To avoid 

the supposed danger of large-scale 

social integration, the Air Forces, like 

the rest of the Army during World War 

II, had been profligate in its use of 

material resources, inefficient in its use 

of men, and destructive of the morale 

of black troops. 

The Air staff was not oblivious to 

these facts and made some adjustments 

in policy as the war progressed. 

Notably, it rejected separate training of 

nonrated black officers and provided for 

integrated training of black navigators 

and bombardiers. In the last days of the 

war General Arnold ordered his commanders to "take affirmative action to COLONEL PARRISH (1946 photograph). 

insure that equity in training and assignment opportunity is provided all personnel.' '

13 And when it came to postwar planning, the Air staff demonstrated it 

had learned much from wartime experience: 

The degree to which negroes can be successfully employed in the Post-War Military 

Establishment largely depends on the success of the Army in maintaining at a minimum 

the feeling o.f discrimination and unfair treatment which basically are the causes for irritation and disorders. . . . in the event of a future emergency the arms will employ a 

large number of negroes and their contribution in such an emergency will largely depend on the training, treatment and intelligent use of negroes during the intervening 

years. 14 

But while admitting that discrimination was at the heart of its racial problem, the Air staff failed to see the connection between discrimination and 

segregation. Instead it adopted the recommendations of its senior commanders. 

The consensus was that black combat (flying) units had performed "more or less 

creditably," but required more training than white units, and that the ground 

echelon and combat support units had performed below average. Rather than 

abolish these below average units, however, commanders wanted them preserved and wanted postwar policy to strengthen segregation. The final recommendation of the Army Air Forces to the Gillem Board was that blacks be 

trained according to the same standards as whites but that they be employed in 

separate units and segregated for recreation, messing, and social activities "on 

12Parrish, "Segregation of the Negro in rhe Army Air Forces." 1lAAFlrr35-268, II Aug45. 14Rpt, ACS/ AS-I to WDSS, 17 Sep 4 5. sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Post· War Military 

Establishment, WDSS 291.2. 
THE POSTWAR AIR FORCE 275 

the posr as well as off,'' in keeping with prevailing customs in the surrounding 

civilian community. '~ 

The Army Air Forces' postwar usc of black troops was fairly conso nant with 

the major provisions of the Gjllem Board Report . To reduce black combat units 

in proportion to the reduction of its white units, it convened the 477th Bombardment Group (M) into the 477th Composite Group. This group, under the 

command of the Army's senior black pilot, Col. Benjamin 0. Davis, Jr., included a fighter, a bombardment, and a service sq uadron . To provide 

segregated duty for its black specialists, the Army Air Forces organized regular 

black squadrons, mostly ammunition, motor transport, and engineer 

throughout its commands. To absorb the large number of unskilled Negroes, it 

organized one black squadron (Squadron F) in each of the ninety-seven base 

unirs in irs worldwide base system to perform laboring and housekeeping 

chores. Finally, it promised ''to the fu llest possible extent" to assign Negroes 

with specialized skills and qualifications to overhead and special units. '(, 

In the summer of 194 7, the Army Air Forces integrated aviation ua1ning at 

Randolph Field, Texas, and quietly closed Tuskegee airfield , thus ending the 

last segregated officer training in the armed forces. The latter move was unrelated 

to the Gillem Board Report or to the demands of civil rights advocates. The 

Tuskegee operation had simply become impractical. In the severe postwar 

retrenchment of the armed forces, Tuskegee's cadet enrollment had dropped 

sharply; only nine men had graduated in the October 1945 class. 17 To the general 

satisfaction of the black community, the black cadets at Randolph Field shared 

both quarters and classes with white students. 18 Nine black cadets were in 

training at the end of 1947.1

9 

Another postwar reduction was nor so advantageous for Negroes. By 

February 1946 the 477th Composite Group had been reduced to sixteen B-25 

bombers, twelve P-47 fighter-bombers, and only 746 men- a 40 percent drop 

in four months. 20 Although the Tactical Air Command rated the unit's postwar 

training and performance satisfactory, and irs transfer co the more hospitable 

surroundings and finer facilities of Lockbourne Field, Ohio, raised morale, the 

477rh, like other understaffed and underequipped organizations, faced inevitable conversion to specialized service. In July 1947 the 477rh was inactivated 

and replaced by the 332d Fighter Group composed of the 99th, lOOth, and 

30 lsr Fighter Squadrons. Black bomber pilots were co nverted ro fighter pilots, 

and the bomber crews were removed from flying starus. 

~Jbid . For an analysis of 1hcsc recommendations. sec Gropman's The 1\ir Force lnlegrntes. ch. II. 

16WD Burc~u of Public Relations, Memo for the Press. 20 Scp 4~: Office of Public Relations. Godman 

Field. Ky .. "Col. Davis Issues Rcpon on Godman Field," 10 On 4~: Memo. Chief. Programs and Manpower Scnion. Troop Basis Branch, Organization Divis1on. D/T&R. for Dir of Mili1ary Personnel. 23 Apr 48. no 

sub: all in Negro Affairs. SecAF files. Sec also" lfistory of Godman Field. Ky .. I Mar l~ Oct 4~." AFSHRC. 17"1-!istory of the 2t43d AAF Base Unit. Pilot School. Basic. Advanced. and Tuskcg·cc Army Air Field. 1 

Scp 194~-31 Oct 19tl~ ... AFSHRC. 18For an example of black reaction sec Ebony Magazine V (September 1949). 1''Memo. James C. Evans. Adviser to the SccDcf. for Capt Robert W. Berry. 10 Feb 48, SccDd 291 .2 files. 20"Hiswry of the if 77th Composite Group." I~ Scp 45-15 Feb 46. Feb-Mar 46. and 1 Mar- 15 Jul 46, 

AFSI IRC. 
276 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

OFFICERS' SOFTBALL TEAM representing the 477th Composite Group, Godwin 

Field, Kentucky. 

These changes flew in the face of the Gillem Board Report, for however 

slightly that document may have changed the Army's segregation poLicy, it did 

demand at least a modest response to the call for equal opportunity in training, 

assignment, and advancement. The board clearly looked to the command of 

black units by qualified black officers and the training of black airmen to serve 

as a cadre for any necessary expansion of black units in wartime. Certainly the 

conversion of black bomber pilots to fighters did not meet these modest 

demands. In its defense the Army Air Forces in effect pleaded that there were 

too many Negroes for its present force, now severely reduced in size and lacking 

planes and other equipment, and coo many of the black troops lacked education 

for the variety of assignments recommended by the board. 

The Army Air Forces seemed to have a point, for in the immediate postwar 

period its percentage of black airmen had risen dramatically. It was drafting 

men to replace departing veterans, and in 1946 it was taking anyone who 

qualified, including many Negroes. In seven months the air arm lost over half 

its black strength, going from a wartime high of 80,606 on 31 August 1945 to 

38.911 on 31 March 1946, but in the same period the black percentage almost 

doubled, climbing from 4.2 to 7.92. 21 The War D~partment predicted that all 

com bat arms would have a black strength of 15 percent by 1 July 1946.22 

This prophecy never materialized in the Air Forces. Changes in enlistment 

standards, curtailment of overseas assignments for Negroes, and, finally, 

suspension of all black enlistments in the Regular Army except in certain 

military specialist occupations turned the percentage of Negroes downward. By 

21 All figures from STM-30. I Sep 4:> and I Apr 46. 22Memo, TAG for CG's ct al., 4 Feb 46. sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel. AG 291.2 (31 Jan 46). 
THE POSTWAR AIR FORCE 277 

the fall of 194 7, when the Air Force became a separate service. 23 the proportion 

of black airmen had leveled off at nearly 7 percent. Nor did the proportion of 

Negroes ever exceed the Gillem Board's 10 percent quota during the next 

decade. 

The Air Force seemed on safer ground when it pleaded that it lacked the 

black airmen with skills to carry out the variety of assignments called for by the 

Gillem Board . The Air Force was finding it impossible to organize effective 

black units in appreciable numbers; even some units already in existence were as 

much as two•thirds below authorized strength in certain ground specialist 

slots. 24 Yet here too the statistics do not reveal the whole truth. Despite a 

general shortage of Negroes in the high test score categories, the Air Force did 

have black enlisted men qualified for general assignment as specialists or at least 

eligible for specialist training, who were instead assigned to labor squadrons. 2) 

In its effort to reduce the number of Negroes, the service had also relieved from 

active duty other black specialists trained in much needed skills. Finally, the Air 

Force still had a surplus of black specialists in some categories at Lockbourne 

Field who were not assigned to the below-strength units. 

Again it was not too many black enlisted men or too few black officers or 

specialists but the policy of strict segregation that kept the Air Force from using 

black troops efficiently. Insistence on segregation, not the number of Negroes, 

caused maldistribution among the commands. In 1947, for example, the Tactical Air Command contained some 5,000 black airmen, close to 28 percent of 

the command's strength. This situation came about because the command 

counted among its units the one black air group and many of the black service 

units whose members in an integrated service would have been distributed 

throughour all the commands according to needs and abilities. The Air Force 

segregation policy restricted all but forty-five of the black officers in the continental United States to one base,

26 just as it was the Air Force's attempt to 

avoid integration that kept black officers from command. In November 1947, 

1, 581 black enlisted men and only two black officers were stationed at MacDill 

Field; at San Antonio there were 3,450 black airmen and again two black officers. These figures provide some clue to the cause of the riot involving black 

airmen at MacDill Field on 27 October 1946. 27 

Segregation also prevented the use of Negroes on a broader professional 

scale. In April 1948, 84. 2 percent of Negroes in the Air Force were working in an 

Hundcr the terms of the National Security Act of 1947 the U.S. Air Force was created as a separate service 

in a Department of the Air Force on 18 September 1947. The new service included the old Army Air Forces: 

the Air Corps. U.S. Army; and General Headquarters Air Force. The srricturcs of WD Circular 124, like those 

of many other departmental circulars, were adopted by the new service. For convenience:' sake the terms A1r 

Force and service will be employed in the remaining sections of this chapter even where: the terms Army A1r 

Forces and componem would be more appropriate. 24"Tactical Air Command (fAC) History, I Jan-30 Ocr 48," pp. 94-96. AFSHRC: see also Lawrence: J. 

Paszek, "Negroes and the Air Force:, 1939-1949," MilitPry Ajja1rs (Spring 1967), p. 8. 

HMemo. DCofS/Pc:rsonnel, TAC. for CG, TAC. 18 Mar48, AFSHRC. 26Mcmo, DCofS/P&A. USAF, for Asst SccAF, 5 Dec 47, sub: Air Force Negro Troops in the Zone of In· 

terior, Negro Affairs. SecAF files. 27"HistOry of MacDill Army Airfield. Ocr J!6," pp. 10-11, AFSHRC. For a detailed analysis of rhc Mac· 

Dill riot and its aftermath. see G ropman. The Air Force Integrates, ch. I; sec also ch. ~.above. 
278 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

CHECKING AMMUNITION. An armorer in the 332d Fighter Group impectJ the 

P-51 Mustang, Italy, 1945. 

occupational specialty as against 92.7 percent of whites, but the number of 

Negroes in radar, aviation specialist, wire communications, and other highly 

specialized skills required to support a tactical air unit was small and far below 

the percentage of whites. The Air Force argued that since Negroes were assigned 

to black units and since there was only one black tactical unit, there was little 

need for Negroes with these special skills. 

The fact that rated black officers and specialists were resuicted to one black 

fighter group particularly concerned civil rights advocates. Without bomber, 

transport, ferrying. or weather observation assignments, black officers qualified 

for larger aircraft had no chance to diversify their careers. It was essentially the 

same story for black airmen. Without more varied and large black combat units 

the Air Force had no need to assign many black airmen to specialist training. In 

December 1947, for example, only 80 of approximately 26,000 black airmen 

were attending specialist schools. 28 When asked about the absence of Negroes in 

large aircraft, especially bombers, Air Force spokesmen cited the conversion of 

the 477th Composite Group, which contained the only black bomber unit, to a 

specialized figher group as merely part of a general reorganization to meet the 

28Mcmo, unsigned (probably DCofS/ P&A), for A sst SecAF Zuckcrr. 22 Apr 48. SecAF files. 
THE POSTWAR AIR FORCE 279 

needs of a 55-wing organization. 29 That the one black bomber unit happened to 

be organized out of existence was pure accident. 

The Gillem Board had sought to expand the training and placement of 

skilled Negroes by going OUJtside the regular black units and giving them 

overhead assignments. After the war some base commanders made such 

assignments unofficially, taking advantage of the abilities of airmen in the overmanned, all-black Squadron F's and assigning them to skilled duties. In one instance the base commander's secretary was a member of his black unit; in 

another, black mechanics from Squadron F worked on the flight line with white 

mechanics. But whatever their work, these men remained members of Squadron 

F, and often the whole black squadron, rather than individual airmen, found 

itself functioning as an overhead unit, contrary to the intent of the Gillem 

Board. Even the few Negroes formally trained in a specialty and placed in an integrated overhead unit did not approximate the Gillem Board· s intention of 

training a cadre that would be readily expandable in an emergency. 

The alternative to expanded overhead assignments was continuation of 

segregated service units and Squadron F's, but, as some manpower experts 

pointed out, many special purpose units suitable for unskilled airmen were 

disappearing from the postwar Air Force. Experience gained through the assignment of large numbers of marginal men to such units in peacetime would be of 

questionable value during large-scale mobilization. 30 As Colonel Parrish. the 

wartime commander of training at Tuskegee, warned, a peacetime policy incapable of wartime application was not only unrealistic, but dangerous. 31 

The Air staff tried to carry out the Gillem Board's suggestion that Negroes 

be stationed ''where attitudes are most favorable for them insofar as military 

factors permit," but even here the service lagged behind civilian practice. When 

Marcus H. Ray arrived at Wright Field, Ohio, for a two-day inspection tour in 

July 1946, he found almost 3,000 black civilians working peacefully and effectively alongside 18,000 white civilians, all assigned to their jobs without regard 

to race. "I would rate this installation," Ray reponed, "as the best example of 

efficient utilization of manpower I have seen." He went on to explain: "The integration has been accomplished without publicity and simply by assigning 

workers according to their capabilities and without regard to race, creed, or 

color." But Ray also noted that there were no black military men on the base. 32 

Assistant Secretary of War Petersen was impressed. "In view of the fact that the 

racial climate seems exceptionally favorable at Wright Field," he wrote General 

Carl Spaatz, "consideration should be given to the employment of carefully 

selected Negro military personnel with specialist ratings for work in that installation. " 33 

29See Air Force Testimony Before the National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs (afternoon session). 

pp. 29-32. CMH files. 

S0Mcmo. DCofS /P&A. TAC. forCG. TAC. 18 Mar48. sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower. AFSHRC. 

l

1

Parrish. ''Segregation of the Negro in the Army Air Forces." pp. 72-73. 

l 2Memo, Ray for A$\Y/, 25 Jul46, A$\Y/291.2. 

HMemo. Petersen for CG, AAF, 29 Jul46, A$\Y/ 291.2. 
280 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

The Air Force complied. In the fall of 1946 ir was forming black units for 

assignment to Air Materiel Command Stations, and it planned to move a black 

unit to Wright Field in the near future. 34 In assigning an all-black unir to 

·wright, however, the Air Force was introducing segregation where none had existed before, and here as in other areas its actions belied the expressed intent of 

the Gillem Board policy. 

Impulse for Change 

The problems associated with efficient use of black airmen intensified when 

the Air Force became an independent service in 1947. The number of Negroes 

fluctuated during the transittion from Army Air Forces ro Air Force, and as late 

as April 1948 the Army still retained a number of specialized black units whose 

members had the right to transfer to the Air Force. Estimates were char some 

5,400 black airmen would eventually enter the Air Force from this source. Air 

Force officials believed that when these men were added to the 26 ,507 Negroes 

already in the new service, including 118 rated and 127 nonrated male officers 

and 4 female officers, the total would exceed the 10 percent quota suggested by 

the Gillem Board. Accordingly, soon after it became an independent service, 

the Air Force set the number of black enlistments at 300 per mooch until the 

necessary adjustments to the transfer program could be made. ~ 

In addition to the chronic problems associated with black enlistmems and 

quotas, four very specific problems demonstrated clearly to Air Force officials 

the urgent need for a change in race policy. The first of these was the distribution of black airmen which threatened the operational efficiency of rhe Tactical 

Air Command. A second, related to rhe first , revolved around the personnel 

shortages in black tactical un.its that necessitated an immediate reorganization of 

those units, a reorganization both controversial and managerially inefficient. 

The third and fourth problems were related; the demands of black leaders for a 

broader use of black servicemen suddenly intensified, dovetailing with the personal inclinations of the Secretary of the Air Force, who was making the strict 

segregation of black officers and specialists increasingly untenable. These four 

factors coalesced during 1948 and led to a reassessment of policy and, finally, to 

a vo/te-face. 

Limiting black enlistment to 300 per month did little to ease the situation in 

the Tactical Air Command. There, the percentage of black personnel, although 

down from its postwar high of 28 percenc to 15.4 percent by the end of 194 7, remained several points above the Gillem Board's 10 percent quota throoghout 

1948. In March 1948 the command's Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, Col. 

John E. Barr, found that the large number of Negroes gave the command a 

.l4Memo. Brig Gcn Reuben C. Hood. Jr .. Office of CG. AAF, for ASW. 13 Scp 46. ASW 291.2. 

})Memo, unsigned. for Asst SccAF Zuckcn. 22 Apr 48. SccAF files. The figures cited in this memorandum 

were slightly at variance with the official strength figures as compiled later in the United States Air Forre 

Stalls/teal Digest/ (1948). The Digest put the Air Force's strength (excluding Army personnel still under Air 

Force control) on 31 March 1948 at 34),827, including 25.404 Negroes (8.9 percent of the total}. The 10 per· 

cent plus estimate mentioned in the memorandum, however, was right on the mark when statistics for enlisted 

Str<:ngth alone arc considered. 
THE POSTWAR AIR FORCE 281 

surplus of "marginal individuals," 

men who could not be trained economically for the various skills needed:' He 

argued that this theoretical surplus of 

Negroes was ''potentially parasitic'' 

and threatened the command's mission.36 · 

At the same time, the command's 

personnel director found that Negroes 

were being inefficiently used. With one 

squadron designated for their black 

airmen, most commanders deemed 

surplus any Negroes in excess of the 

needs of that squadron and made little 

attempt to use them effectively. Even 

when some of these men were given a 

chance at skilled jobs in the Tactical Air 

Command their assignments proved 

short-lived. Because of a shortage of 

white airmen at Shaw Air Force Base, 

South Carolina, in early 1948, for example, Negroes from the base's 

SQUADRON F, 318TH AAF BA'ITAL· Squadron F were assigned to fill all the 

ION, t'n review, Lockbourne At'r Force slots in Squadron C, the base fire 

Base, Oht'o, 1947. department. The Negroes performed so 

creditably that when enough white airmen to man Squadron C became available 

the commander suggested that the black fire fighters be transferred to 

Lockbourne rather than returned to their menial assignments.37 The advantage 

of leaving the all-black Squadron C at Shaw was apparently overlooked by 

everyone. 

Even this limited chance at occupational preferment was exceptional for 

black airmen in the Tactical Air Command. The command's personnel staff admitted that many highly skilled black technicians were performing menial tasks 

and that measures taken to raise the performance levels of other black airmen 

through training were inadequate. The staff also concluded that actions designed by the command to raise morale among black airmen left much to be 

desired. It mentioned specifically the excessively high turnover of officers assigned to black units, officers who for the most part proved mediocre as leaders. 

Most devastating of all, the study admitted that promotions and other rewards 

for duties performed by black airmen were not commensurate with those received by whites.38 

30Memo. DCofS/P&A. TAC, for CG, TAC, 18 Mar 48, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, AFSHRC. 37Memo, Adj . 20th Fighter Wing, for CG, Ninth AF, undated, sub: Transfer of Suuctural Firefighters: 2d 

lnd, Hq 332d Fighter Wing, lockbourne, to CG, Ninth AF. 26 Apr 48. Hist of Nimh AF, AFSHRC. 

38Memo. DCofS/ P&A, TAC, for CG. TAC, 18 Mar 48, sub: Utili~ation of Negro Manpower, AFSHRC. 
282 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Colonel Barr offered a solution that echoed the p lea of Air Force commanders everywhere: revise Circular 124 to allow his organization to reduce the 

perr.entage of Negroes. Among a number of' 'compromise solutions'' he recommended raising enlistment standards to reduce the number of submarginal 

airmen; designating Squadron E, the transportation squadron of the combat 

wings, a black unit; assign ing all skilled black technicians to Lockbourne or 

declaring them surplus to the command; and selecting only outstanding officers 

to command black units. 

One of these recommendations was under fire in Colonel Barr's own command. All-black transportation squadrons had already been discussed in the 

Ninth Air Force and had brought an immediate objection from Maj. Gen. 

William D. Old, its commander. Old explained that few black airmen in his 

command were qualified for "higher echelon maintenance activities," that is, 

major motor and transmission overhaul, and he had no black officers qualified 

to command such troops. On-the-job training would be impossible during total 

conversion of the squadrons from white to black; formal schooling for whole 

squadrons would have to be organized. Besides, Old continued, making 

transportation squadrons all black would only aggravate the command's race 

problems, for it would result in a further deviation from the "desired ratio of 

one to ten." 0 ld wanted to reduce the number of black airmen ·in the Ninth Air 

Force by 1,633 men. The loss would not materially affect the efficiency of his 

command, he concluded. It would leave the Ninth Air Force with a ratio of one 

black officer to ten white and one black airman to eight white, and still permit 

the manning of black tactical units at full strength. 39 In the end none of these 

recommendations was followed. They needed the approval of Air Force headquarters, and as Lt. Gen. Elwood R. Quesada, commander of the Tactical Air 

Command, explained to General Old, the headquarters was in the midst of a 

lengthy review of Circular 124. In the meantime the command would have to 

carry on without guidance from higher headquarters.

4

° Carry on it did, but the 

problems associated with the distribution of black airmen, problems the command constantly shared with Air Force headquarters, lingered throughout 

1948.41 

The Air Force's segregation policy had meanwhile created a critical situation 

in the black tactical units. The old 332d, now the 332d Fighter Wing, shared 

with the rest of the command the burden of too many low-scoring men-3) percent of Lockbourne's airmen were in the two lowest groups, IV and V-but here 

the problem was acute since the presence of so many persons with little ability 

limited the number of skilled black airmen that the Tactical Air Command 

could transfer to the wing from other pans of the command. Under direction of 

the command, the Ninth Air Force was taking advantage of a regulation that 

restricted the reenlistment of low-scoring airmen, but the high percentage of 

.I'>Memo. Maj Gen Old for CG. TAC. 26 Jan 48, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, 9AF 200.3, Hist of 

Ninth AF. AFSHRC. 40Ltr. Lt Gen Quesada to Maj Gcn Old, Ninth AF, 9 Apr 48, Hist of Ninth AF. AFSHRC. 

41Ltrs, CG, TAC, to CSIUSAF, I Sep 48, sub: Reception of Submarginal Enlisted Personnel; VCSIUSAF 

to CG, T AC. II Scp 48, sub: Elimination of Undesirable or Substandard Airmen; CG. TAC. to CSIUSAF, 24 

Scp 48, same sub. All in AFSHRC. 
THE POSTWAR AIR FORCE 283 

unskilled Negroes persisted at Lockbourne. Negroes in the upper test brackets 

were not reenlisting while the low scorers unquestionably were. 42 

At the same time there was a shortage of rated black officers. The 332d 

Fighter Wing was authorized 244 officers, but only 200 were assigned in 

February 1948. There was no easy solution to the shortage, a product of many 

years of neglect. Segregation imposed the necessity of devising a broad and 

long-range recruitment and training program for black officers, but not until 

April 1948 did the Tactical Air Command call for a steady flow of Negroes 

through officer candidate and flight training schooJs.H It hoped to have another 

thirry-one black pilot graduates by March 1949 and planned to recall thirty-two 

others from inactive status.44 Even these steps could not possibly alleviate the 

serious shortage caused by the perennial failure to replace the wing's annual 

pilot attriticn. 

The chronic shortage of black field grade officers in the 332d was the 

immediate cause of the change in Air Force policy. By February 1948 the 332d 

had only thirteen of its forty-eight authorized field grade officers on duty. The 

three tactical units of the wing were commanded by captains instead of the 

authorized lieutenant colonels. If Colonel Davis were reassigned, and his 

attendance at the Air War College was expected momentarily, his successor as 

wing commander would be a major with five years' service.") The Tactical Air 

Commander was trying to have all field grade Negroes assigned to the 332d, but 

even that expedient would not provide enough officers.46 Finally, General 

Quesada decided to recommend that "practically all" the key field grade 

positions in the 332d Wing be filled by whitesY 

Subsequent discussions at Air Force headquarters gave the Air Force Chief of 

Staff, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, three choices: leave Lockbourne manned 

exclusively by black officers; assign a white wing commander with a racially 

mixed staff; or permit Colonel Davis to remain in command with a racially 

mixed staff. Believing that General Vandenberg would approve the last course, 

the Tactical Air Command proceeded to search for appropriate white officers to 

fill the key positions under Davis.48 

The deputy commander of the Ninth Air Force, Brig. Gen. Jarred V. Crabb, 

predicted that placing whites in key positions in the 332d would cause trouble, 

but leaving Davis in command of a mixed staff ''would be loaded with 

Ltr, DCofS/P&A, TAC. to CG, Ninth AI', 19 May 48, sub: Submarginal Enlisted Personnel: Record of 

Dir of Per Sraff. TAC, Mrg. 28 Oct 48; borh in AFSHRC. 

43Ltr, CG, TAC, to CC. Ninth AF, 9 Apr48. TAC 314 (9 Apr48). AFSHRC. 44Hq TAC. Record and Roudng Sheet. 16 Apr 48. sub: Supervisory Visit 332d Ftr Gp, Lockbourne AFB, 

AFSHRC. )Ltr, CG, Ninth AF. to CG. TAC. 10 Feb 48, sub: Assignment of Negro Personnel, Hist of Ninth AF. 

AFSHRC. 46Hq TAC. Record and Routing Sheet, 16 Apr 48. sub: Supervisory Visit 332d Ftr Gp, Lockbourne AFB. 

AFSHRC. 47Lus, CG. TAC, 10 CG. Ninth AF. 9 Apr 48. and DCC, TAC, to CG, Ninth AF. 7 May 48, TAC 210.3; 

both in Hist of Nimh AI'. AFSHRC. 48Mcmo. A-1. Ninth AI', for CIS, Ninth AF. 18 May 48, sub: Manning of 332d Fighter Wing. Hist of 

Ninth AF: Record of the TAC Staff Conf. 18 Mav 48: both in AFSHRC. 
284 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

dynamite. " 49 The commander of the Ninth Air Force called the proposal to 

integrate the 332d's staff contrary to Air Force policy, which prescribed 

segregated units of not less t han company strength. General Old was forthright: 

[Integration) would be playing in the direction in which the negro press would like 

to force us. They are definitely attempting to force the Army and Air Force to solve tht' 

racial problem. As you know, they have been strongly advocating mixed companies of 

white and colored. For obvious reasons this is mosr undesirable and to do so would 

definitely limit the geographical locations in which such units could be employed. If the 

Air Forces go ahead and set a precedent, most undesirable repercussions may occur. 

Regardless of how the problem is solved, we would certainly come under strong criticism 

of the negro press. That must be expected. 

In view of the combat efficiency demonstrated by colored organizations during the 

last war, my first recommendation in the interest of national defense and saving the 

taxpayer's money is to let the organization die on the vine. We make a big subject of 

giving the taxpayers the maximum amount of protection for each dollar spent, then turn 

around and support an organization that would contribute little or nothing in an 

emergency. It ts my own opinion that it is an unnecessary drain on our national 

resources, but for political reasons I presume the organization must be retained. 

Therefore, my next recommended solution is to transfer all of the colored personnel 

from the Wing Headquarters staff to the Tactical and Service Organizations within the 

Wing structure and replace it with a completely white staff. 0 

It is difficult to estimate the extent to which these views were shared by other 

senior commanders, bur they were widespread and revealed the tenacious hold 

of segregation. ~~ 

The Ninth Air Force's deputy commander offered another solution: use 

"whatever colored officers we have" to run Lockbourne. He urged that Colonel 

Davis's absence at the Air War College be considered a temporary arrangement. 

Meanwhile, the general added, "we can carry Lockbourne along for that period 

of time by close supervision from this headquarters. " )2 As Davis later put it, 

cost effectiveness, not prejudice, was the key factor in the Air Force's wish to get 

rid of the 332d. The Air Force, he concluded, "wasn't getting its money's worth 

from negro pilots in a black air force.'' H 

The Tactical Air Command's use of black troops is always singled out 

because of the numbers involved, but the problem was common to nearly all 

commands. Most Negroes in the Strategic Air Command, for example, were 

assigned to aviation engineer units where, as construction workers, they built 

roads, runways, and housing for the command's far-flung bases. These duties 

were transient, however, and like migrant workers at home, black construction 

crews were shifted from base to base as the need arose; they had little chance for 

promotion, let alone the opportunity co develop ocher skills. 14 

The distribution of Negroes in all commands, and particularly the shortage 

of black specialises and officers in the 332d Fighter Wing, strongly influenced 

49Ltr. Brig Gen ). V. Crabb to Maj Gcn Robert M. Lee. Hq TAC. 19 May 48. Hist of Ninth AF, AFSHRC. 

)0Ltr. CG. Ninth AF, to Maj Gen R. M. Lee, TAC, 18 May 48, Hist of Ninth AF, AFSHRC. 

H For discussion of these views and their influence on officers. sec USAF Oral History Program, Interviews 

with Brig Gen Noel Parrish, 30 Mar 73. Col Jack Marr, I Oct 73. and Eugene Zucken. Apr 73. 

)

2Ltr, Brig Gcn J. V. Crabb to Maj Gcn Robert M. Lee, Hq TAC, 19 May 48. Hisr of Nimh AF. AFSHRC. 

Hlmcrv, author with Davis. 

Hsec history of various aviation air units in "History of the Strategic Air Command. 1948." vols VI and 

Vlll, AFSHRC. 
THE POSTWAR AIR FORCE 285 

the Air Force to reexamine its racial 

policy, but pressures came from outside 

the department as well as from the 

black community which began to press 

its demands on the new service.)) The 

prestigious Pittsburgh Courier opened 

the campaign in March 1948 by directing a series of questions on Air Force 

policy to the Chief of Staff. General 

Carl Spaatz responded with a smooth 

summary of the Gillem Board Report, 

leaning heavily on that document's progressive aims. "It is the feeling of this 

Headquarters, • • the Chief of Staff 

wrote, "that the ultimate Air Force objective must be to eliminate segregation 

among its personnel by the unrestricted 

C D use of Negro personnel in free competiOLONEL A VIS · f d · h · h A· F tton or any uty wit 10 t e tr orce 

for which they may qualify. • ')6 Unimpressed with this familiar rhetoric, the 

Courier headlined its account of the exchange, ''Air Force to Keep Segregated 

Policy." 

Assistant Secretary Eugene M. Zuckert followed General Spaatz's line when 

he met with black leaders at the National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs 

in April 1948 , but his audience also showed little interest in future intentions. 

Putting it bluntly, they wanted to know why segregation was necessary in the 

Air Force. Zuckert could only assure them that segregation was a "practical 

military expediency," not an "endorsement of belief in racial distribution." 57 

But the black leaders pressed the matter further. Why was it expedient in a 

system dedicated to consideration of the individual, asked the president of 

Howard University, to segregate a Negro of superior mentality? At Yale or 

Harvard, Dr. Mordecai Johnson continued, he would be kept on the team, but 

if he entered the Air Force he would be "brigaded with all the p eople from 

Mississippi and Alabama who had had education that costs $ 100 a year.' ')8 

Answering for the Air Force, Lt. Gen. ldwal H. Edwards, the Deputy Chief 

of Staff for Personnel, admitted segregation was·qnnecessary, promised eventual 

integration, but stated firmly that for the present segregation remained Air 

HFor discussion of the strength of this outside pressure. see USAF Oral History Program, Interviews with 

Davis and Brig Gcn Lucius Theus, Jan 73. 

Ltr, Lemuel Graves to Gen Carl Spaatz, 26 Mar 48; Ln. Spaatz to Graves. 19 Apr 48. A copy of the cor· 

respondence was also scm to the Sec A F. Sec Col Jack F. Marr, "A Report on the First Year of Implementation 

of Current Policies Regarding Negro Personnel." n.d .. PPB 291.2. 

HDepartment of National Defense. "National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs." 26 Apr 48 (morn· 

ing session) p. 62. The conference, convened by Secretary of Defense Forrestal, pcovided an opportunity for a 

ou~ of black leaders to question major defense officials on the department's racial policies. Sec ch. 13. 

) Dcparrmem of National Defense. "National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs." 28 Apr 48, (morn· 

ing session). p. 67. 
286 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Force policy. As evidence of progress, Edwards pointed to the peaceful integration of black officers in training at Randolph Field. For one conferee this 

"progress" led to another conclusion: resistance to integration had to emanate 

from the policymakers, not from the fighting men. All Edwards could manage 

in the way of a reply was th:at Air Force policy was considered "the best way to 

make this thing work under present conditions. " 59 Later Edwards, who was not 

insensitive to the arguments of the black leaders, told Secretary of the Air Force 

W. Stuart Symington that perhaps some recommendation ''looking toward the 

integration of whites and negroes in the same units may be forthcoming'' from 

the Air Board's study of racial policy which was to commence the first week in 

May.Go 

If the logic of the black leaders impressed General Edwards, the demands 

themselves had little effect on policy. It remained for James C. Evans, now the 

adviser to Secretary of Defense Forrestal, to translate these questions and 

demands into recommendations for specific action. Taking advantage of a long 

acquaintance with the Secretary of the Air Force, Evans discussed the department's race problem with him in May 1948. Symington was sympathetic. "Put 

it on paper,'' he told Evans. 61 

Couching his recommendations in terms of the Gillem Board policy, Evans 

faithfully summarized for the secretary the demands of black leaders. Specifically, he asked that Colonel Davis, the commander of Lockbourne Air Force 

Base, be sent for advanced military schooling without delay. Diversification of 

career was long overdue for Davis, the ranking black officer in the Air Force, as it 

was for others who were considered indispensable because of the small number 

of qualified black leaders. For Davis, most of all, the situation was unfair since 

he had always been in command of practically all rated black officers. Nor was it 

good for his subordinates. The Air Force should not hesitate to assign a white 

replacement for Davis. In effect, Evans was telling Symington that the black 

community would understand the necessity for such a move. 

Besides, under the program Evans was recommending, the all-black wing 

would soon cease to exist. He wanted the Air Force to "deemphasize" 

Lockbourne as the black air base and scatter the black units concentrated there. 

He wanted to see Negroes dispersed throughout the Air Force, either individually or in small units contemplated by the Gillem Board, but he wanted men 

assigned on the basis of technical specialty and proficiency rather than race. It 

was unrealistic, he declared, to assume all black officers could be most effectively utilized as pilots and all enlisted men as Squadron F laborers. Limiting 

training and job opportunity because of race r.educed fighting potential in a way 

that never could be justified. The Air Force should open to its Negroes a wide 

variety of training, experience, and opportunity to acquire versatility and proficiency.62 

>9Jbid .. p. 69. 

60Mcmo, Edwards for SccAF. 29 Apr 48. sub: Conference With Group of Prominent Negroes. Negro Affairs 1948, SccJ\F files. 

61Imerv, author with Evans, 7 Apr 70; Note, Evans to Col Marr, 8 Jun ~0. SD 291.2. 62Mcmo. Evans for SccAF. 7 Jun 48. sub: Negro Air Units, 054-1-12, SecDef files. 
THE POSTWAR AIR FORCE 

-

287 

If followed , this program would 

fundamentally alter Air Force racial 

practices. General Edwards recommended that the reply to Evans should 

state that certain policy changes would 

be forthcoming, although they would 

have to await the outcome of a departmental reevaluation currently under 

way. The suggestions had been solicited 

by Symington, and Edwards was anxious for Evans to understand the delay 

was not a device to defer action.63 

Edwards was in a position to make 

such assurances. He was an influential 

member of the Air staff with considerable experience in the field of race 

relations. As a member of the Army 

staff during World War II he had 

GENERALEDWARDS worked closely with the old McCloy 

committee on black troops and had strongly advocated wartime experiments 

with the integration of small-scale units. 64 His background, along with his 

observations as chief personnel officer in the new Air Force, had taught him to 

avoid abstract appeals to justice and to make suggestions in terms of military efficiency. Concern with efficiency led him, soon after the Air Force became a 

separate service, to order Lt. Col. Jack F. Marr, a member of his staff, to study 

the Air Force's racial policy and practices. Testifying to Edwards's pragmatic approach, Marr later said of his own introduction to the subject: ''There was no 

sociology involved. It was merely a routine staff action along with a bunch of 

other staff actions that were taking place.' '65 

A similar concern for efficiency, this time triggered by criticism at the National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs in April 1948 and Evans's discussions with Secretary Symington the following month, led Edwards, after talking 

it over with Assistant Secretary Zuckert, to raise the subject of the employment 

of Negroes in the Air Board in May.66 In the wake of the Air Board discussion 

the Chief of Staff appointed a group under Maj. Gen. Richard E. Nugent, then 

6lDCofS/ P Summary Sheet for CofS. 15 Jul 48, sub: Negro Air Units. Negro Affairs 1948, SccAF files. 

64During World War II. Edwards served as the Army's Assistam Chief of Staff, G-3. For a discussion of 

his opposition at that time to the concentration of large groups of men in categories IV and V. see Edwin W. 

Kenworthy. "The Case Against Army Segregation," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and 

Social Science 275 (May 1951):29 . Sec also Lee's Employr~t nt of Negro Troops, p. 159. Edward's part in the 

integration program is based on USAF Oral Hi.story Program. Interviews with Zucken. General William F. 

McKee, Davis, Senator Stuart Symington. and Marc. Sec also lmerv, author with Lt Gen ldwal H. Edwards. 

Nov 73. CMH files. 6)Ltr, Marr to author. 19 Jun 70. CMH files. 66A group created to review policy and make recommendations to the Chief of Staff when called upon. the 

Air Board consisted at this time of the Assistant Chiefs ol the Air Stat!. the Air Inspector, the Air Compttollcr, 

the Director of Information, the Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff for Research and Development, and other of· 

ficials when appropriate. 
288 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

COLONEL MARR 

Director of Civilian Personnel, to reexamine the service's race policy. 67 

Nugent was another Air Force official 

who viewed the employment of 

Negroes as a problem in military efficiency. 68 These three, Edwards, 

Nugent, and Marr, were the chief 

figures in the development of the Air 

Force integration plan, which grew out 

of the Nugent group's study. Edwards 

and Nugent supervised its many 

refinements in the staff while Marr, 

whom Zuckert later described as the indispensable man, wrote the plan and 

remained intimately connected with it 

until the Air Force carried it out.69 

Antedating the Truman order to integrate the services, the provisions of 

this plan eventually became the program under which the Air Force was integrated. 70 

As it evolved during the months of deliberation, 71 the Air Force study of 

black manpower weighed Air Force practices against the Gillem Board Report 

and found them "considerably divergent" from the policy as outlined. It 

isolated several reasons for this divergence. Black airmen on the whole, as 

measured by classification tests, were unsuitable and inadequate for operating 

all-black air units organized and trained for modern combat. To achieve a 

balance of skills and training in black units was a ''never ending problem for 

which there appears to be no solution under either the current Air Force policies 

or the policies recommended by the Gillem Board." In shore, practices with 

respect to Negroes were ''wasteful, deleterious to military effectiveness and lacking in wartime application. •' 

67Memo. Maj Leon Bell for Zucken. 27 Oct 48. SecAF files. Nugent later succeeded Edwards as the chief 

Air Force personnel officer. 68This attitude is mongly displayed in the USAF Oral History Program. Interviews with Lr Gen Richard E. 

Nugent, 8 Jun 73. and Marr, 1 Ocr 73. 

l>?USAF Oral Hist lntcrv with Zuckcn. 7

°Colonel Marr recalled a different chronology for the Air Force integration plan. According to Marr, his 

proposals were forwarded by Edwards to Symington who in turn discussed th~m at a meeting of the Secretary 

of Defense's Personnel Policy Board sometime before June 1948. The board rejected the plan at the behest of 

Secretary of the Army Royall, but later in the year outside pressure caused it to be reconsidered. Nothing is 

available in the files to corroborate Marc's recollections, nor do the other participants remember that Royall 

was ever involved in the Air Force's internal affairs. The records do not show when the Air Force study of race 

policy, which originated in the Air Board in May 1948. evolved into the plan for integration that Marr wrote 

and the Chief of Scaff signed in December 1948, but it seems unlikely that the plan would have been ready 

before June. See Ltrs, Marr to author. 19 Jun 70. and 28 Jul 70. CMI-1 files: see also USAF Oral Hist lmerv with 

Marr. 71The Air Force integration plan underwent considerable revision and modification before its submission 

to the Secretary of Defense in January 1949. The quotations in rhe next paragraphs arc taken from the version 

approved by the Chief of Staff on 29 December 1948. 
THE POSTWAR AIR FORCE 289 

Edwards and his staff saw several advantages in complete integration. 

Wherever qualified black airmen had been permitted to compete with whites on 

their individual qualifications and abilities, the Negroes "achieved a certain 

amount of .acceptance and recognition." Students in some schools lived and 

learned side by side as a matter of practical necessity. ''This degree of integration and acceptance on a competitive basis has been eminently successful and 

has to a remarkable degree solved the 'Negro problem' for the training schools 

involved." At some bases qualified black airmen were administratively assigned 

to black units but actually performed duties in white units. Some commanders 

had requested that these men be permanently transferred and assigned to the 

white units because the men deserved higher grades but could not receive them 

in black units and because it was poor management to have individuals performing duties for one military organization and living under the administrative 

jurisdiction of another. 

In the end consideration of fu ll integration was dropped in favor of a program based on the Navy's postwar integration of its general service. Edwards 

and his personnel staff dismissed the Navy's problems with stewards and its difficulty in enlisting skilled Negroes as temporary embarrassments with little practical consequence. This problem apparently allowed an economic and efficient 

use of Negroes and also "relieved the Navy of the necessity for repeated effons 

to justify an untenable position." They saw several practical advantages in a 

similar policy for the Air Force. It would allow the elimination of the 10 percent 

quota. The inactivation of some black units-"and the pronounced relief of the 

problems involved in maintaining those units under present conditions'' -could be accomplished without injustice to Negroes and with benefit to 

the Air Force. Nor would the integration of qualified Negroes in technical and 

combat units appreciably alter current practices; according to contemporary 

estimates such skilled men would never total more that 1 percenr of the service 's 

manpower. 

The logic of social justice might have led to total integration, but it would 

not have solved the Air Force's pressing problem of roo many unskilled blacks. 

It was consideration of military efficiency, therefore, that led these personnel expens to propose a system of limited integration along the lines of the Navy's 

postwar policy. Such a system, they concluded, would release the Air Force from 

its quota obligation-and hence its continuing surplus of unskilled men-and 

free it to assign its re latively small group of skilled black recruits where they were 

needed and might advance. 

Although limited, the proposed reform was substantial enough to arouse 

opposition. General Edwards reported overwhelming opposition to any form of 

integration among Air Force officers, and never during the spring of 1948 did 

the Chief of Staff seriously consider even partial integration. 72 But if integration, even in a small dose, was unpalatable, widespread inefficiency was in72Mcmo. Edwards for Sec A F. 29 Apr 48, sub: Conference With Group of Prominent Negroes. Negro Af· 

fairs 1948. SecAF files. 
290 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

tolerable. And a new service, still in the process of developing policy, might embrace the new and the practical, especially if pressure were ex erred from above. 

Assistant Secretary Zuckert intimated as much when he finally replied to James 

Evans, "You have my personal assurance that our present position is not in the 

interest of maintaining the status quo, but it is in anticipation of a more progressive and more satisfactory action in the relatively near future.' ' 73 

73Memo. Zuckcn to Evans. 22 Jul -18. sub: Negro Air Units, SccAF files. 
CHAPTER 12 

The President Intervenes 

On 26 July 1948 President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981, 

calling on the armed forces to provide equal treatment and opportunity for 

black servicemen. This act has variously been described as an example of 

presidential initiative, the capstone of the Truman civil rights program, and the 

climax of the struggle for racial equality in the armed forces. But in some ways 

the order was simply a practical response to a presidential dilemma. 

The President's order was related to the advent of the cold war. 

Developments in the Middle East and Europe testified to the ambitions of the 

Soviet Union, and many Americans feared the spread of communism 

throughout the world, a threat more ominous with the erosion of American 

military strength since World War II. In March 1947 Truman enunciated a new 

foreign policy calling for the containment of Soviet expansion and pledging 

economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey. A year later he asked Congress 

to adopt the Marshall Plan for economic aid to Europe, authorize military training, and enact a new selective service law to maintain the armed forces at expanded levels. That same month his principal military advisers met at Key 

West, Florida, to discuss new military roles and missions for the armed forces, 

grapple with paralyzing divisions among the services, and re-form the military 

establishment into a genuinely unified whole. 1 As if to underscore the urgency 

of these measures, the Soviet Union began in April 1948 to harass Allied troops 

in Berlin, an action that would develop into a full-scale blockade by June. 

Integration of the armed forces hardly loomed large on the international 

scene, but if the problem of race appeared insignificant to military planners, the 

sheer number of Negroes in the armed forces gave them new prominence in national defense. Because of postwar racial quotas, particularly in the Army and 

Air Force, black servicemen now constituted a significant segment of the service 

population, and consequently their abilities and well-being had a direct bearing 

on the nation's cold war defenses. The black community represented 10 percent 

of the country's manpower, and this also influenced defense planning. Black 

threats to boycott the segregated armed forces could not be ignored, and civil 

rights demands had to be considered in developing laws relating to selective service and universal training. Nor could the administration overlook the fact that 

the United States had become a leading protagonist in a cold war in which the 

sympathies of the undeveloped and mostly colored world would soon assume a 

special importance. Inasmuch as integration of the services had become an 

10n the development of cold war roles and missions for the services. sec Timothy W. Stanley. American 

Defeme a11d National Security (Washington: Public Affairs Press, 19)6), Chapter VIII. 
292 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES. 1940-1965 

almost universal demand of the black community, integration became, willynilly, an important defense issue. 

A second stimulus to improvement of the black serviceo:an's position was 

the Truman administration's strong civil rights program, wh[ch gave executive 

sanction to a national movement starred some years before. The civil rights 

movement was the product of many factors, including the federal government's 

increased sense of responsibility for the welfare of all its citizens, a sense that had 

grown out of the New Deal and a world war which expanded horizons and increased economic power for much of the black population. The Supreme Court 

had recently accelerated this movement by broadening its interpretation of the 

Fourteenth Amendment. In the black community itself greater participation in 

elections and new techniques in community action were eroding discriminatory 

traditions and practices in many communities. 

The civil rights movement had in fact progressed by 1948 to a stage at which 

it was politically attractive for a Democratic president to assume a vigorous civil 

rights seance. The urban black vote had become a major goal of Truman's election campaign, and he was being pressed repeatedly by his advisers to 

demonstrate his support for black interests. A presidential order on armed forces 

integration logically followed because the services, conspicuous practitioners of 

segregation and patently susceptible to unilateral action on the part of the Chief 

Executive, were obvious and necessary targets in the black voters' campaign for 

civil rights. 

Finally, the integration order resulted in part from the move toward service 

unification and the emergence of James V. Forrestal as Secretary of Defense. 

Despite misgivings over centralized control of the nation's defense establishment and overconcenrration of power in the hands of a Secretary of Defense, 

Forrestal soon discovered that certain problems rising out of common service experiences naturally converged on the office of the secretary. Both by philosophy 

and temperament he was disposed to avoid a clash with the services over integration. He remained sensitive to their interests and rights, and he frankly doubted 

the efficacy of social change through executive fiat. Yet Forrestal was not impervious to the aspirations of the civil rights activists; guided by a humane interest 

in racial equality, he made integration a departmental goal. His technique for 

achieving integration, however, proved inadequate in the face of strong service 

opposition, and finally the President, acting on the basis of these seemingly 

unrelated motives, had to issue the executive order to strengthen the defense 

secretary's hand. 

The Truman Administration and Cz"vtl Rights 

Executive and legislative interest in the civil rights of black Americans 

reached a level in 1948 unmatched since Reconstruction. The President himself 

was the catalyst. By creating a presidential committee on civil rights and 

developing a legislative program based on its findings, Truman brought the 

black minority into the political arena and committed the federal government to 

a program of social legislation that it has continued to support ever since. Little 
THE PRESIDENT INTERVENES 293 

in the President's background suggested he would sponsor basic social changes. 

He was a son of the middle border, from a family firmly dedicated to the Confederate cause. His appreciation of black aspirations was hardly sophisticated, as 

he revealed to a black audience in 1940: "I wish to make it clear that I am not 

appealing for social equ.ality of the Negro. The Negro himself knows better than 

that, and the highest types of Negro leaders say quite frankly they prefer the 

society of their own people. Negroes want justice, not social relations.· '

2 

Nor did his attitude change drastically in later years. In 1961, seven years 

after the Supreme Court's vital school integration decision, Truman was calling 

the Freedom Riders "meddlesome intruders who should stay at home and attend to their own business.'' His suggestion to proprietors of lunch counters 

undergoing sit-ins was to kick out unwelcome customers. 

3 But if he failed to appreciate the scope of black demands, Truman nevertheless demonstrated as early 

as 1940 an acute awareness of the connection between civil rights for blacks and 

civil liberties for all Americans: 

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 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.4 

He would repeat these sentiments to other gatheiings, including the 

assembled delegates of the NAACP's 1946 convention. ~ The President's civil 

rights program would be based, then, on a practical concern for the rights of the 

majority. Neither his social philosophy nor his political use of black demands 

should detract from his achievements in the field of civil rights. 

It was probably just as well that Truman adopted a pragmatic approach to 

civil rights, for there was little social legislation a reform president could hope to 

get through the postwar Congresses. Dominated by a conservative coalition that 

included the Dixiecrats, a group of sometimes racially reactionary southerners, 

Congress showed little interest in civil rights. The creation of a permanent Fair 

Employment Practices Commission, the one piece of legislation directly 

affecting Negroes and the only cuuent test of congressional intent in civil 

rights, was floundering on Capitol Hill. Truman conspicuously supported the 

fair employment measure, but d id little else specifically in the first year after the 

war to advance civil rights. Instead he seemed content to carry on with the New 

Deal approach to the problem: improve the social condition of all Americans 

and the condition of the minorities will also improve. In this vein his first 

domestic program concentrated on national projects for housing, health, and 

veterans' benefits. 

2

)onathan Daniels, The Man of lndepmdencc (Philadelphia: Lippincott, ~0 , p. 338. The quotation is 

from a speech before the National Colored Democratic Convention, Chicago, reprinted in the Congressio11al 

Record, 76th Cong., 3d sess., vol. 86, ~Aug 1940. Appendix, pp. 5367-69. 

3Quored in )ames Peck, Freedom Ride (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962} , pp. 1)4-)). 4

Quoted in Daniels. Man of Indepmdmce, pp. 339-40. 

~Msg, HST to NAACP Convention, 2:9 Jun 47, Public Papers of the Presidetlt, 1947 (Washington: 

Government Printing Office, 1963}, pp. 311- 13 . 
294 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

The conversion of Harry Truman into a forceful civil rights advocate seems co 

have come about, at least partially, from his exposure to what he later called the 

"anti-minority" incidents visited on black servicemen and civilians in 1946.6 

Although the lynchings, property destruction, and assaults never matched the 

racial violence that followed World War I, they were enough to convince many 

civil rights leaders that the pattern of racial strife was being repeated. Some of 

these men, along with a group of labor executives and clergymen, formed a 

National Emergency Committee Against Mob Violence co warn the American 

public against the dangers of racial intolerance. A delegation from this 

committee, with Walter White as spokesman, met with the President on 19 

September 1946 to demand government action. White described the scene: 

The President sat quietly, elbows resting on the arms of his chair and his fingers 

interlocked against his stOmach as he listened with a grim face to the story of the 

lynchings .. . . When I finished, the President exclaimed in his flat, midwestern accent, 

"My God! I had no idea it was as terrible as that! We've got to do something! " 7 

But the Truman administration had nearly exhausted the usual remedies 

open to it. The Attorney General had investigated the lynchings and Klan 

activities and the President had spoken out strongly and repeatedly against mob 

violence but without clear and pertinent civil rights legislation presidential 

exhortations and investigations counted for very little. Civil rights leaders like 

White understood this, and, given the mood of Congress, they were resigned to 

the lack of legislative support. Nevertheless, it was in this context that the 

President decided to create a committee to investigate and report on the status 

of civil rights in America. 

The concept of a federal civil rights group had been circulating in the executive branch for some time. After the Detroit race riot in 1943, presidential 

assistant Jonathan Daniels had organized a committee to deal with racial 

troubles. Proposals to create a national organization to reduce racial tensions 

were advanced later in the war, principally by Saul K. Padover, a minority 

specialise in the Interior Department, and David K. Niles of the White House 

staff. Little came of the committee idea, however, because Roosevelt was convinced that any steps associated with integration would prove divisive and were 

unwise during wartime. 8 With the war over and a different political climate 

prevailing. Niles, now senior White House adviser on minority affairs, proposed 

the formation of a comminee not only to investigate racial violence but also co 

explore the entire su bject of civil rights. 

Walter White and his friends greeted the idea with some skepticism. They 

had come demanding action, but were met instead with another promise of a 

6Harry S. Truman. Memoirs (New York: Doubleday. 19~8). 11:180-81; White. A Mtm Called Wh1ie, pp. 

330-31. Truman's concept of civil rights is analyzed in considerable detail in Donald R. McCoy and Richard 

T. Rueuen, Quest and Respome: Minority Rights and the Trurmzn Administration (lawrence. Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1973). Chapter Ill. 7Whi!e. A Man Called White, pp. 330-31. 81mcrvs, Nichols with Oscar Ewing, former federal security administrator and senior presidential adviser. 

and Jonathan Daniels, 1954. in Nichols Collection, CMH; see also McCoy and Ructten. Quest and Respome, 

p. 49. 
THE PRESIDENT INTERVENES 

committee and the probability of interminable congressional debate and unproductive hearings.9 But this time, for 

several reasons, it would be different. In 

the first place the civil rights leaders 

underestimated the sincerity of Truman's reaction to the racial violence. He 

had quickly agreed to create Niles's 

committee by executive order to save it 

from possible pigeonholing at the 

hands of a hostile Congress. He had also 

given the group, called the President's 

Committee on Civil Rights, a broad 

directive "to determine whether and in 

what respect current law enforcement 

measures and the authority and means 

possessed by Federal, State, and local 

governments may be strengthened and 

improved to safeguard the civil rights of . the people.' ' 10 The civil rights leaders WALTER WHI1E 

295 

also failed to guage the effect Republican victories in the 1946 congressional 

elections would have on the administration. Finding it necessary to court the 

Negro and other minorities and hoping to confound congressional opposition, 

the administration sought a strong civil rights program to put before the 

Eightieth Congress. Thus, the committee's recommendations would get respectful attention in the White House. Finally, neither the civil rights leaders nor the 

President could have foreseen the effectiveness of the committee members. Serving under Charles E. Wilson, president of the General Electric Company, the 

group included among its fifteen members distinguished church leaders, public 

service lawyers, the presidents of Dartmouth College and the University of 

North Carolina, and prominent labor executives. The committee had two black 

members, Sadie T. M. Alexander, a lawyer from Philadelphia, and Channing 

H. Tobias, director of the Phelps-Stokes Fund . Its members not only prepared a 

comprehensive survey of the condition of civil rights in America but also 

presented to the President on 29 October 1947 a far-reaching series of recommendations, in effect a program for corrective action that would serve as a bench 

mark for civil rights progress for many years. 11 

The group recommended the concentration of civil rights work in the 

Department of Justice, the establishment of a permanent civil rights commission, a federal antilynching act, a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission, and legislation to correct discrimination in voting and naturalization 

YWhitc. A Man Called fr/h1ie, pp. 330-31. 10Exccutivc Order 9808. 5 Dec 46. 11Jn addition to Chairman Wilson , the followi ng people served on the committee: Sadie T. M. Alexander, 

)ames B. Carey, John S. Dickey. Morris L. Ernst, Roland B. Ginclsohn, Frank P. Graham, Francis J. Haas, 

Charles Luckman, Francis P. Matthews, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., Henry Knox Sherrill, Boris Shishkin, 

Dorothy Tilly, and Channing Tobias. 
296 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

laws. It also examined the state of civil rights in the armed forces and incidentally publicized the long-ignored survey of black infantry platoons that had 

fought in Europe in 1945. 12 It concluded: 

The injustice of calling men to fight for freedom while subjecting them to humiliating 

discrimination within the fighting forces is at once apparent. furthermore, by preventing entire groups from making their maximum contribution ro the national defense, 

we weaken our defense to that extent and impose heavier burdens on the remainder of 

the population. 13 

The committee called for sweeping change in the armed forces, recommending that Congress enact legislation, followed by appropriate administrative action, to end all discrimination and segregation in the services. Concluding that 

the recent service unification provided a timely opportunity for revision of existing policies and practices, the committee proposed a specific ban on discrimination and segregation in all phases of recruitment, assignment, and training, including selection for service schools and academies. as well as in mess 

halls, quarters, recreational facilities, and post exchanges. It also wanted commissions and promotions awarded on merit alone and asked for new laws to protect servicemen from discrimination in communities adjacent to military bases. ~ 

The committee wanted the President to look beyond the integration of people 

working and living on military bases, and it introduced a concept that would 

gain considerable support in a future administration. The armed forces, it 

declared, should be used as an instrument of social change. World War II had 

demonstrated that the services were a laboratory in which citizens could be 

educated on a broad range of social and political issues, and the adminisuation 

was neglecting an effective technique for teaching the public the advantages of 

providing equal treatment and opportunity for all citizens. 1

) 

President Truman deleted the recommendations on civil rights in the services when he transmitted the committee's recommendations to Congress in the 

form of a special message on 2 February 1948. Arguing that the services' race 

practices were matters of executive interest and pointing to recent progress 

toward better race relations in the armed forces, the President told Congress that 

he had already instructed the Secretary of Defense to take steps to eliminate remaining instances of discrimination in the services as rapidly as possible. He also 

promised that the personnel policies and practices of all the services would be 

made uniform. 16 

To press for civil rights legislation for the armed forces or even to mention 

segregation was politically imprudent. Truman had two pieces of military 

legislation to get through Congress: a new draft law and a provision for universal 

12Parts of the survey of attitudes of participants in the World War II imegration of platoons were included 

in remarks by Congresswoman Helen G . Douglas. published in the Congressional Record, 79th Con g .. 2d 

scss .. I Feb 1946, Appendix. pp. 432-443. 

13To Secure These Rights, p. 162. 

~1bid .. pp. 162-63. 1 )Ibid .. p. 47. 

16Truman, Special Message to the Congress on Civil Rights, 2 Feb 48. P11blic Papers of the President, 

1948, pp. 121- 26. 
THE PRESIDENT INTERVENES 

-.... 

297 

. .. ,,, 'I I J 

I 

·/ ?-~ ? 

TRUMAN'S CIVIL RIGHTS AIGN as seen by Washington Star cartoonist Clifford 

K. Be"yman, March 14, 1948. 

military training. These he considered too vital to the nation's defense to risk 

grounding on the shoals of racial controversy. For the time being at least, integration of the armed forces would have to be played down, and any civil rights 

progress in the Department of Defense would have to depend on the persuasiveness of James Forrestal. 

Civil Rights and the Department of Defense 

The basic postwar reorganization of the National Military Establishment, the 

National Security Act of 1947, created the Office of the Secretary of Defense, a 

separate Department of the Air Force, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the 

National Security Council. It also reconstituted the War Department as the 

Department of the Army and gave legal recognition as a permanent agency to 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The principle of military unification that underlay the 

reorganization plan was muted in the legislation that finally emerged from Congress. Although the Secretary of Defense was given authority co establish general 
298 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

policies and to exercise general direction and control of the services, the services 

themselves retained a large measure of autonomy in their internal administration and individual service secretaries retained cabinet rank. In effect, the act 

created a secretary without a department, a reorganization that largely reflected 

the viewpoint of the Navy. The Army had fought for a much greater degree of 

unification, which would not be achieved until the passage of the National 

Security Act amendments of 1949. This legislation redesignated the unified 

department the Department of Defense, strengthened the powers of the 

Secretary of Defense, and provided for uniform budgetary procedures. 

Although the services were to be "separately administered," their respective 

secretaries henceforward headed "military departments" without cabinet 

status. 

The first Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, was a man of exceptional administrative talents, yet even before taking office he expressed strong reservations on the wisdom of a unified military department. As early as 30 July 1945, 

at breakfast with President Truman during the Potsdam Conference, Forrestal 

questioned whether any one man "was good enough to run the combined 

Army, Navy, and Air Departments." What kind of men could the president get 

in peacetime, he asked, to be under secretaries of War, Navy, and Air if they 

were subordinate to a single defense secretary? 17 Speaking to Lester Granger that 

same year on the power of the Secretary of the Navy to order the Marine Corps to 

accept Negroes, Forrestal expressed uncertainty about a cabinet officer's place in 

the scheme of things. "Some people think the Secretary is god-almighty, but 

he's just a god-damn civilian. " 18 Even after his appointment as defense 

secretary doubts lingered: "My chief misgivings about unification derived from 

my fear that there would be a tendency toward overconcentration and reliance 

on one man or one-group direction. In other words, too much central 

control.' ' 19 

Forrestal's philosophy of management reinforced the limitations placed on 

the Secretary of Defense by the National Security Act. He sought a middle way 

in which the efficiency of a unified system could be obtained without sacrificing 

what he considered to be the real advantages of service autonomy. Thus, he supported a 1945 report of the defense study group under Ferdinand Eberstadt that 

argued for a "coordinated" rather than a "unitary" defense establishment. 20 

Practical experience modified his fears somewhat, and by October 1948, convinced he needed greater power to control the defense establishment, Forrestal 

urged that the language of the National Security Act, which limited the 

Secretary of Defense to "gen eral" authority only over the military departments, 

be amended to eliminate the word general. Yet he always retained his basic 

17Quotcd in Walter Millis, cd., The Forrestal Diaries (New York: Viking Press, 19~1). p. 88. 

18Quotcd by Granger in the interview he gave Nichols in 19~4. 1

9Quotcd in Millis, Forrestal Diarin, p. 301 . 20Ibid .. pp. 11 7, 147. Timothy Stanley describes the Ebcrstadt report as the Nav)•'s "constructive alternative" to unification. Sec Stanley's American Dc/cme and National Security, p. 75 ; sec also Hewes. From 

Root to McNamara, pp. 276-77. For a derailed analysis of defense unification. sec Lawrence Legere, Jr., 

"Unification of the Armed Forces," Chapter VI , in CMH. 
THE PRESIDENT INTERVENES 299 

distrust of dictation, preferring to understand and adjust rather than to conclude and order. 21 

Nowhere was Forrestal's philosophy of government more evident than in his 

approach to the problem of integration. His office would be concerned with 

equal opportunity, he promised Walter White soon after his elevation to the 

new post, but "the job of Secretary of Defense," he warned, "is one which will 

have to develop in an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary manner.'' Further dashing hopes of sudden reform, Forrestal added that specific racial problems, as distinct from general policy matters, would remain the province of the 

individual services. 22 He retained this attitude throughout his tenure. He considered the President's instructions to end remaining instances of discrimination 

in the services ''in accord with my own conception of my responsibilities under 

unification," and he was in wholehearted agreement with a presidential wish 

that the National Military Establishment work out the answer to its racial problems through administrative action. He wanted to see a "more nearly uniform 

approach to interracial problems by the three Services," but experience had 

demonstrated, he believed, that racial problems could not be solved simply by 

publishing an executive order or passing a law. Racial progress would come from 

education. Such had been his observation in the wartime Navy, and he was 

ready to promise that "even greater progress will be made in the future." But, 

he added, "progress must be made administratively and should not be put into 

effect by fiat.' '

23 

Executive fiat was just what some of Forrestal's advisers wanted. For example, his executive assistant, John H. Ohly, his civilian aide, James C. Evans, 24 

and Truman Gibson urged the secretary to consider establishing an interservice 

committee along the lines of the old McCloy committee to prepare a uniform 

racial policy that he could apply to all the services. They wanted the committee 

to examine past and current practices as well as the recent reports of the President's Advisory Commission on Universal Training and the Committee on Civil 

Rights and to make specific recommendations for carrying out and policing 

department policy. Truman Gibson went to the heart of the matter: the formulation of such an interservice committee would signal to the black community better than anything else the defense establishment's determination to 

change the racial situation. More and more, he warned, the discrepancies among 

the services' racial practices were attracting public attention. Most important to 

the admininstration was the fact that these discrepancies were strengthening opposition to universal military training and the draft. 25 

21 Millis. Forrestal Diaries, pp. 301,497. 22Ltr, Forrestal to White. 21 Oct 47. Day file, Forrestal Papers, Princeton University library. 23Remarks by James Forrestal at Dinner Meeting of the National Urban League, 12 Feb 48, copy in Mise 

file, Forrcsal Papers; sec also Ltr, Forrestal to John N. Brown. 27 Oct 47. Day file, ibid. 24 In addition to his duties as Civilian Aide to rhe Secretary of the Army, Evans was made aide to the 

Secretary of Defense on 29 October 1947. (See Memo, SecDcf for SA et al., 29 Oct 47, D70-I-5. files of 

Historian, OSD.) Evans was subsequently appointed "civilian assistant" to the Secretary of Defense by 

Secretary Louis Johnson on 28 Apr 49. (See NME Press Release, 17-49-A.) 2

)Ltr. Gibson to Ohly. 25 Nov 4.7, D54-l-3. Sec De£ files. 
300 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES , 1940-1965 

A. PHILIP RANDOLPH. {Detail jrotn 

painting by Betsy G. ReyneatJ.) 

Gibson was no doubt referring to A. 

Philip Randolph, president of the 

Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters 

and organizer of the 1940 March on 

Washington Movement, who had 

spoken out against the pending legislation. Randolph was particularly concerned that lhe bill did not prohibit 

segregation, and he quoted a member 

of the Advisory Commission on Universal Training who admitted that the bill 

ignored the racial issue because "the 

South might oppose UMT if Negroes 

were included.'' Drafting eighteen-year 

olds into a segregated Army was a threat 

to black progress, Randol ph charged, 

because enforced segregation made it 

difficult to break down other forms of 

discrimination. Convinced that the 

Pentagon was trying to bypass the 

segregation issue, Randolph and Grant 

Reynolds, a black clergyman and New 

York politician, formed a Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and 

Training. They planned to submit a proposal to the President and Congress for 

drafting a nondiscrimination measure for the armed forces, and they were 

prepared to back up this demand with a march on Washington-no empty 

gesture in an election year. Randolph had impressive backing from black 

leaders, among them Dr. Channing H. Tobias of the Civil Rights Committee, 

GeorgeS. Schuyler, columnist of the Pittsburgh Courier, L. D. Reddick, curator 

of the Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library, and Joe Louis. 26 

Black spokesmen were particularly incensed by the attitude of the Secretary 

of the Army and his staff. Walter White pointed out that these officials 

continued to justify segregated units on the grounds that segregation was-he 

quoted them-'' in the interest of national defense.'' White went to special 

pains to refute the Army's contention that segregation was necessary because the 

Army had to conform to local laws and customs. "How," he asked Secretary 

Forrestal, 

can the imposition of segregation upon northern states having clear-cut laws and policies 

in opposition to such practices be justified by the Army? ... 

In view of President Truman's recent report to the Congress and in view of the report 

of his Committee on Civil Rights condemning segregation in the Armed Forces, I am at 

a loss to understand the reluctance on the part of the Department of Defense to 

26Ncw York Times, November 23. 1947: Herald Tribune, November 23. 1947. Sec also L. D. Reddick, 

"The Negro Policy of the American Army Since World War II," journal of Negro History 38 (April 

1953): 194- 21). 
THE PRESIDENT INTERVENES 301 

immediately eliminate all vestiges of discrimination and segregation in the Armed 

Forces of this country. As the foremost defender of democratic principles in 

international councils, the United States can ill afford to any longer discrimil}ate against 

its Negro citizens in its Armed Forces solely because they were fortunate or unfortunate 

enough to be born Negroes. 27 

Forrestal stubbornly resisted the pleas of his advisers and black leaders that 

he assume a more active role. In the first place he had real doubts concerning his 

authority to do so. Forrestal was also aware of the consequences an integration 

campaign would have on Capitol Hill, where he was in the midst of delicate 

negotiations on defense measures. But most of all the role of crusader did not fie 

him. "I have gone somewhat slowly," Forrestal had written in late October 

1947, "because I believe in the theory of having things to talk about as having 

been done rather than having to predtct them, and ... morale and confidence 

are easy to destroy but not easy to rebuild. In other words, I want to be sure that 

any changes we make are changes that accomplish something and not merely for 

the sake of change. " 28 

To Forrestal equal opportunity was not a pious platitude, but a practical 

means of solving the milttary's racial problems. Equal opportunity was the tactic 

he had used in the Navy where he had encouraged specialized training for all 

qualified Ne~roes . He understood that on shipboard machinists ate and bunked 

with machimsts, firemen with firemen. Inaugurated in the fleet, the practice 

naturally spread to the shore establishment, and equal opportunity led inevitably to the integration of the general service. Given the opportunity to 

qualify for all specialties, Negroes-albeit their number was limited to the small 

group in the general service-quickly gained equal treatment in off-the-job activities. Forrestal intended to apply the same tactic to achieve the same results in 

the other services. 29 

As in the past, he turned first to Lester Granger, his old friend from the National Urban League. Acting on the recommendation of his special assistant, 

Marx Leva, Forrestal invited Granger to the Pentagon to discuss the department's racial problems with a view to holding a general conference and symposium on the subject. As usual, Granger was full of ideas, and he and the 

secretary agreed that Forrestal should create a "critics group," which would 

discuss "Army and general defense policies in the use of Negro personnel." 30 

Granger suggested a roster of black and white experts, influential in the black 

community and representing most shades of opinion, but he would exclude 

those apt to make political capital out of the issues. 

The Leva-Granger conference idea fitted neatly into Forrestal's thinking. It 

offered the possibility of introducing to the services in a systematic and 

documented way the complaints of responsible black leaders while instructing 

those leaders in the manpower problems confronting the postwar armed forces. 

27Ltr. White tO Forrcstal, 17 feb 48, D54-t-3. SecDcf files. 28Ltr. Forrcstal w Rear Adm W. B. Young. 23 Oct 4 7, quoted in Millis. Forrestal Diaries, p. 334. 

291ntcrv, Blumens~n with Marx Leva. Special Assistam to the Secretary of Defense (1947-49) and later 

Assistant Secretary of Defense (Legal and Legislative Affairs). 4 May 64, CMH files. 30Handwriucn Memo. Leva for Forrestal, auachc:d to Lrr, White to Forrcstal. 17 Feb 48; Lu, Leva to 

Granger, 19 Feb 48; Ltr, Granger to Forrcstal, 2 Mar 48. All in D54-1-3. Sc:cDef files. The: quotation is from 

the 2 March lcuer. 
302 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

He hoped the conference would modify traditionalist attitudes toward integration while curbing mounting unrest in the black communi5y. Granger and Forrestal agreed that the conference should be held soon. Although Granger 

wanted some "good solid white representation" in the group, Forrestal decided 

instead to invite fifteen black leaders to meet on 26 April in the Pentagon; he 

alerted the service secretaries, asking them to attend or to designate an assistant 

to represent them in each case. 31 · 

Announcement of the conference was upstaged in the press by the activities 

of some civil rights militants, including those whom Granger sought to exclude 

from the Forrestal conference because he thought they would make a political 

issue of the war against segregation. Forrestal first learned of the militants' plans 

from members of the National Negro Publishers Association, a group of 

publishers and editors of important black journals who were about to tour European installations as guests of the ArmyY At Granger's suggestion Forrestal had 

met with the publishers and editors to explain the causes for the delay in 

desegregating the services. lnstead, he found himself listening to an impassioned demand for immediate change. Ira F. Lewis, president of the Pittsburgh 

Courier and spokesman for the group, told the secretary that the black community did not expect the services to be a laboratory or clearinghouse for processing the social ills of the nation, but it wanted to warn the man responsible 

for military preparedness that the United States could not afford another war 

with one-tenth of its population lacking the spirit to fight. The problem of 

segregation could best be solved by the policymakers. "The colored people of 

the country have a high regard for you, Mr. Secretary, as a square shooter," 

Lewis concluded. And from Forrestal they expected action. 33 

While black newspapermen were pressing the executive branch, Randolph 

and his Committee Against Jim Crow were demanding congressional action. 

Randolph concentrated on one explosive issue, the Army's procurement of 

troops. The first War Department plans for postwar manpower procurement 

were predicated on some form of universal military training, a new concept for 

the United States. The plans immediately came under fire from Negroes 

because the Army, citing the Gillem Board Report as its authority, had specified 

that black recruits be trained in segregated units. The Army had also specified 

that the black units form pam of larger, racially mixed units and would be 

31Memo, Marx Leva for SA et al.. 13 Apr 48: idem for forrestal, 24 Apr 48; ltr, SecDcf to Alllnvited. 10 

Apr 48. All in 054-1-3, SecDcf files. Those invited were Truman Gibson; Dr. Channing Tobias; Dr. Sadie 

T. M. Alexander; Mary McLeod Bethune: Dr. John W. Davis of West Virginia State College: Dr. Benjamin E. 

Mays of Morehouse College; Dr. Mordecai Johnson of Howard University; P. B. Young, Jr., of the Norfolk 

joumal and Guide; Willard Townsend of the United Transpon Service Employees: Rev. John H. Johnson of 

New York; Walter White; Hobson E. Reynolds of the International Order of Elks; Bishop J. W. Gregg of Kansas City; loren Miller of Los Angeles: and Charles Houston of Washington, D.C. Unable tO attend, White 

sent his assistant Roy Wilkins, Townsend scm George L. P. Weaver, and Mrs. Bethune was replaced by Ira F. 

Lewis of the PittSburgh Courier. 

32Representing eight papers, a cross section of the influential black press, the journalists included Ira F. 

Lewis and William G. Nunn, Pimburgh Courier; Cliff W. Mackay, Afro-American; Louis Martin and Charles 

Browning, Chicago Defender; Thomas W. Young and Louis R. Laurier, Norfolk journal and Guide; Caner 

Wesley, Houston Defmder: FrankL. Stanley. Louisville Defender; Dowda! H. Davis, Kansas City Call; Dan 

Burley, Amsterdam New!. See Evans, aist of Publishers and Editors of Negro Newspapers, Pentagon, 18 Mar 

48, copy in CMH. 

33Scmimems of the meeting were summarized in Ltr, Ira F. Lewis ro Forrestal, 24 Mar 48; see also Ltr, 

Granger co Forrcsml, 2 Mar 48: both in D54-1-4, SecDef files. 
THE PRESIDENT INTERVENES 303 

trained in racially mixed camps. ~ The President's Advisory Commission on 

Universal Training (the Compton Commission), appointed to study the Army's 

program, strongly objected to the segregation provisions, but to no avail. 3) As if 

to signal its intentions the Army trained an experimental universal military 

training unit in 1947 at Fort Knox that carefully excluded black volunteers. 

The showdown between civil rights organizations and the administration 

over universal military training never materialized. Faced with chronic opposition to the program and the exigencies of the cold war, the administration 

quietly shelved universal training and concentrated instead on the reestablishment of the selective service system. When black attention naturally shifted to 

the new draft legislation, Randolph was able to capitalize on the determination 

of many leaders in the civil rights movement to defeat any draft law that 

countenanced the Army's racial policy. Appearing at the Senate Armed Services 

Committee hearings on the draft bill, Randolph raised the specter of civil 

disobedience, pledging 

to openly counsel, aid, and abet youth, both white and Ne~ro, to quarantine any Jim 

Crow conscription system, whether it bear the label of untversal military training or 

selective service .... 

From coast to coast in my travels l shall call upon all Negro veterans to join this civil 

disobedience movement and to recruit their younger brothers in an organized refusal to 

register and be drafted .... 

I shall appeal to the thousands of white youths ... to demonstrate their solidarity 

with Negro youth by ignoring the entire registration and induction machinery .... 

I shall appeal to the Negro parents to lend their moral support to their sons, to stand 

behind them as they march with heads held high to Federal prisons as a telling 

demonstration to the world rhat Negroes have reached the limit of human endurance, 

that, in the words of the spiritual, we will be buried in our graves before we will be 

slaves. 36 

Randolph argued that hard-won gains in education, job opportunity, and 

housing would be nullified by federal legislation supporting segregation. How 

could a Fair Employment Practices Commission, he asked, dare criticize 

discrimination in industry if the government itself was discriminating against 

Negroes in the services? "Negroes are just sick and tired of being pushed 

around," he concluded, "and we just do not propose to take it, and we do not 

care what happens. " 37 

When Senator Wayne Morse warned Randolph that such statements in times 

of national emergency would leave him open to charges of treason, Randolph 

replied that by fighting for their rights Negroes were serving the cause of 

American democracy. Borrowing from the rhetoric of the cold war, he predicted 

that such was the effect of segregation on the international fight for men's 

minds that America could never stop communism as long as it was burdened 

with Jim Crowism. Randolph threw down the gauntlet. "We have to face this 

.I4WD Ltr. AGAO-S J53 (28 May 47), WDGOT-M. II Jun 47 . 

.1~ A Progra111 for Natio11al Security: Report of the President's Advisory Commission on Um'versal Training, 

29 May 1947 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1947). p. 42 . 

.16Scnatc, Hearings Before the Committee on Armed Services. Universal Military Traini11g, 80th Cong., 2d 

scss .. 1948, p. 688 . 

.17 (bid .. p. 689. 
304 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES. 1940-1965 

thing sooner or Iacer, and we might just as well face it now. " 38 It was up to the 

adminiStration and Congress co decide whether his challenge was the beginning 

of a mass movement or a weightless threat by an extremist group. 

The immediate reaction of various spokesmen for the black community supported both possibilities. Also testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Truman Gibson, who was a member of the Compton Commission that 

had objected to segregation, expressed "shock and dismay" at Randolph's 

pledge and predicted chat Negroes would continue to parcicipate in the country's defense effon.39 For his pains Gibson was branded a "rubber stamp Uncle 

Tom" by Congressman Adam Clayton Powell. The black press, for the most 

part, applauded Randolph's analysis of the mood of Negroes, but shied away 

from the threat of civil disobedience. The NAACP and most other civil rights 

organizations took the same stand, condemning segregation but disavowing 

civil disobedience. 40 

Although the administration could take comfort in the relatively mild reaction from conservative blacks, an important element of the black community 

supported Randolph's stand. A poll of young educated Negroes conducted by 

the NAACP revealed that 71 percent of those of draft age would support the 

civil disobedience campaign. So impressive was Randolph's support-the New 

York Times called it a blunt warning from the black public-that ooe news 

journal saw in the campaign the specter of a major national crisis.41 On the other 

hand, the Washington Post cautioned its readers not to exaggerate the 

significance of the protest. Randolph's words, the Post declared, were intended 

"more as moral pressure" for nondiscrimination clauses in pending draft and 

universal military training legislation than as a serious threat. 42 

Whatever its ultimate influence on national policy, the Randolph civil 

disobedience pledge had no visible effect on the position of the President or 

Congress. With a draft bill and a national political convention pending, the 

President was not about to change his hands-off policy coward the segregation 

issue in the services. In face he showed some heat ac what he saw as a threat by 

extremists to exploit an issue he claimed he was doing his best to resolve. 43 As 

for members of Congress, most of chose who joined in the debate on the draft 

bill simply ignored the threatened boycott. 

In contrast to the militant Randolph, the Negroes who gathered at Secretary 

Forrestal' s invitation for the National Defense Conference on 26 April appeared 

to be a rather sedate group. But academic honors, business success, and gray 

hairs were misleading. These eminent educators, clergymen, and civil rights 

38lbid .. pp. 69 1-94. The quotation is from page 694. 

Jbid .. p. 645. 

4

0>J'hc Philadelphia lnq11irer, April II. 1948: PM, April II, 1948. Sec also McCloy and Ruettcn, Q11est 

and Respome, pp. 107-08; "Crisis in che Making: U.S. Negroes Tussle With the Issue," Newsweek, June 7. 

1948, pp. 28-29: L. Bennett. Jr., Confrontation Black and IPhtie (Chicago: Johnson Press. 1965). pp. 

192-94; Grant Reynolds. "A Triumph for Civil Disturbance," Nation 167 (August 28. 1948):228-29. 

41Ncw York Times, April I, 1948. 42Washington Post, April 2, 1948. 4lMcCoy and Ruencn. Quest and Response, p. 107. 
THE PRESIDENT INTERVENES 305 

leaders proved just as determined as Randolph and his associates to be rid of 

segregation and, considering their position in the community, were more likely 

to influence the administration. That they were their own men quickly became 

apparent in the stormy course of the Pentagon meeting. They subjected a score 

of defense officials~ 4 to searching questions, submitted themselves to crossexamination by the press, and agreed to prepare a report for the Secretary of 

Defense. 

While the group refrained from endorsing Randolph's position, it also 

refrained from criticizing him and strongly supported his thesis that segregation 

in itself was discrimination. Nor were its views soft-pedaled in the press release 

issued after the conference. The Secretary of Defense was forced to announce 

that the black leaders declined to serve as advisers to the National Military 

Establishment as long as the services continued to practice segregation. The 

group unanimously recommended that the armed services eliminate segregation 

and challenged the Army's interpretation of its own policy, insisting that the 

Army could abolish segregation even within the framework of the Gillem Board 

recommendations. The members planned no future meetings but adjourned to 

prepare their report.~~ 

This adamant stand should not have surprised the Secretary of Defense. 

Forrestal could appreciate more than most the pressures operating on the group. 

In the aftermath of the report of the President's Committee on Civil Rights and 

in the heightened atmosphere caused by the rhetoric of the Randolph 

campaign, these men were also caught up in the militants' cause. If they were 

reluctant to attack the services too severely Jest they lose their chance to 

influence the course of racial events in the department, they were equally 

reluctant to accept the pace of reform dictated by the traditionalists. In the end 

they chose to side with their more radical colleagues. Thus despite Lester 

Granger's attempt to soften the blow, the conference designed to bring the 

opponents together ended with yet another condemnation of Forrestal's 

gradualism. 

Forrestal himself agreed with the goals of the conferees, he told Granger, 

but at the same time he refused to abandon his approach, insisting that he could 

not force people into cooperation and mutual respect by issuing a directive. 

Instead he arranged for Granger to meet with Army leaders to spread the gospel 

of equal opportunity and ordered a report prepared showing precisely what the 

Navy did during the late months of the war and "how much of it has stuck-on 

the question of non-segregation both in messing and barracks.'' The report, 

written by Lt. Dennis D. Nelson, was sent to Secretary of the Army Royall along 

44Dcpanmcnt of National Defense. ''National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs." 26 Apr 48. This 

document includes the testimony and transcript of the news conference that followed. Officials appearing 

before the committee included James Forrc:stal. Secretary of Dc:fc:nsc:; Robert P. Patterson, former Secrcrary of 

War; Marx Leva. Special Assistant to the: Secretary of Defense; James Evans, Adviser to the Secretary of 

Defense; Kenneth C. Royall, Secretary of the Army; John N. Brown, Assistant Secretary of the Navy; W. 

Stuart Symington, Secretary of the Air Force; and personnel officials and consultants from each service. 4)NME Press Releases, 26 Apr and 8 Scp 48. 
306 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

NATIONAL DEFENSE CONFERENCE ON NEGRO AFFAIRS. Conferees prepare to meet 

with the press, 26 Apri/1948. 

with sixteen photographs picturing blacks and whites being trained together 

and working side by side.~ 6 

Given the vast size of the Army, it was perfectly feasible to open all training 

to qualified Negroes and yet continue for years racial practices that had so 

quickly proved impossible in the Navy's smaller general service. Of course, even 

in the Army the number of segregated jobs that could be created was limited, 

and in time Forrestal's tactics might, it could be argued, have succeeded despite 

the Army's size and the intractability of its leaders. Time, however, was 

precisely what Forrestallacked, given the increasing political strength of the civil 

rights movement. 

Sparked by Randolph's stand before the congressional committee, some 

members of the black community geared up for greater protests. Worse still for 

an administration facing a critical election, the protest was finding some support 

in the camps of the President's rivals. Early in May, for example, a group of prominent civil rights activists formed the Commission of Inquiry with the expressed purpose of examining the treatment of black servicemen during World 

War II. Organized by Randolph and Reynolds, the commission boasted Arthur 

Garfield Hayes, noted civil li bertarian and lawyer, as its counsel. The commission planned to interrogate witnesses and, on the basis of the testimony 

gathered, issue a repon to Congress and the public that would include recommendations on conscription legislation. Various Defense Department officials 

were invited to testify but only James C. Evans, who acted as department 

46Memo, Forrestal for Marx Leva, 30 Apr 48; Ltr, Nelson to Leva, 24 May 48; Memo. Leva for SA, 25 May 

48. All in 054- t- 3. SecDcf files. 
THE PRESIDENT INTERVENES 307 

spokesman, accepted. During the inquiry, which Evans estimated was attended 

by 180 persons, little attention was given to Randolph's civil disobedience 

pledge, but Evans himself came in for considerable ridicule, and there were 

headlines aplenty in the black press. 4 7 

These attacks were being carried out in an atmosphere of heightened 

political interest in the civil rights of.black servicemen. Henry A. Wallace, the 

Progressive Party's presidential candidate, had for some time been telling his 

black audiences that the administration was insincere because if it wanted to end 

segregation it .could simply force the resignation of the Secretary of the Army. 48 

Henry Cabot Lodge, the Republican senator from Massachusetts, called on Forreseal to make "a real attempt, well thought out and well organized," to integrate a sizable part of the armed forces with soldiers volunteering for such arrangements. Quoting from General Eisenhower's testimony before the Armed 

Services Committee, he reminded Forrestal that segregation was not only an 

undeserved and unjustified humiliation to the Negro, but a potential danger to 

the national defense effort. In the face of a manpower shortage, it was inexcusable to view segregation simply as a political question, "of concern to a few 

individuals and to a few men in public life and to be dealt with as adroitly as 

possible, always with an eye to the largest number of votes.' '

49 

Yet as the timing of Senator Lodge's letter suggests, the political implications of the segregation fight were a prime concern of every politician involved, 

and Forrestal had to act with this fact in mind . The administration considered 

the Wallace campaign a real but minor threat because of his appeal to black 

voters in the early months of the campaign. 0 The Republican incursion into the 

civil rights field was more ominous, and Forrestal, having acknowledged Lodge's 

letter, turned to Lester Granger for help in drafting a detailed reply. It took 

Granger some time to suggest an approach because he agreed with Lodge on 

many points but found some of his inferences as unsound as the Army's policy. 

For instance Lodge approved Eisenhower's comments on segregation, and the 

only real difference between Eisenhower and the Army staff was that Eisenhower 

wanted segregation made more efficient by putting smaller all-black units into 

racially composite organizations. Negroes opposed segregation as an insult to 

their race and to their manhood. Granger wanted Focrrestal to tell Lodge that no 

group of Negroes mindful of its public standing could take a position other than 

total opposition to segregation. Having to choose between Randolph's stand 

and Eisenhower's, Negroes could not endorse Eisenhower. Granger also thought 

Forrestal would do well to explain to Lodge that he himself favored for the other 

services the policy followed by the Navy in the name of improving efficiency and 

morale. ~• 

47Ltr. Grant Reynolds and Randolph to Evans, 3 May 48; Memo, Evans for SccOcf, 13 May 48, sub: Com· 

mission of Inquiry; both in SccOcf fi les. See also A. Philip Randolph , Statement Before Commission of In· 

qui~·· 8 May tiS, copy in USAF Special Files 35. 1948, SccAF files. 

8New York Times. February 16, 1948. 4

9Lcr, Sen. Henry C. Lodge, Jr. (Mass.). co SecOd. 19 Apr 48. 054- 1-3. SccDcf files. 

)

0McCQy and Ruc:ucn, Quest ami Respome, pp. 98-99. 

Hltr, Granger to Leva, 14 May 48, 054-1-3. SccDcf files. 
308 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

A reply along these line was prepared, but Marx Leva persuaded Forrestal 

not to send it until the selective service bill had safely passed Congress. 52 Forreseal was ''seriously concerned,'' he wrote the President on 28 May 1948, about 

the fate of that legislation. He wanted to express his opposition to an amendment proposed by Senaror Richard B. Russell of Georgia that would guarantee 

segregated units for those draftees who wished to serve only with members of 

their own race. He also wanted to announce his intention of making ''further 

progress" in interracial relations. To that end he had discussed with Special 

Counsel to the President Clark M. Clifford the creation of an advisory board to 

recommend specific steps his department could take in the race relations field. 

Reiterating a long-cherished belief, Forrestal declared that this "difficult problem" could not be solved by issuing an executive order or passing a law, "for 

progress in this field must be achieved by education, and not by mandate. ")3 

The President agreed to these maneuvers, H but just three days later Forrestal 

returned to the subject, passing along to Truman a warning from Senator Robert 

A. Taft of Ohio that both the Russell amendment and one proposed by Senator 

William Langer of North Dakota to prohibit all segregation were potential 

roadblocks to passage of the bilP) In the end Congress rejected both amendmems, passing a draft bill without any special racial provisions on 19 June 1948. 

The proposal for an advisory board proved to be Forrestal's last attempt to 

change the racial practices of the armed forces through gradualism. In the next 

few weeks the whole problem would be taken out of his hands by a White 

House grown impatient with his methods. There, in contrast to the comparatively weak position of the Secretary of Defense, who had not yet consolidated his authority, the full force and power of the Commander in Chief 

would be used to give a dramatic new meaning to equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces. Given the temper of the times, Forrestal's surrender was inevitable, for a successful reform program had to show measurable 

improvements, and despite his maneuvers with the civil rights activists, the 

Congress, and the services, Forrestal had no success worth proclaiming in his first 

eight months of office. 

This lack of progress disappoimed civil rights leaders, who had perhaps 

overestimated the racial reforms made when Forrestal was Secretary of the Navy. 

It can be argued that as Secretary of Defense Forrestal himself was inclined to 

overestimate them . Nevertheless, he could demonstrate some systematic improvement in the lot of the black sailor, enough improvement, according to his 

gradualist philosophy, to assure continued progress. Ironically, considering Forreseal's faith in the efficacy of education and persuasion, whatever can be 

counted as his success in the Navy was accomplished by the firm authority he 

HMcmo. Leva to Forrestal. 18 May48, 0~4-1-3. SccOcf files. Forrestal's response. suggesting that Lodge 

meet with Lester Granger to discuss the matter. was finally sent on 24 Jun 48. Sec also Memo. Leva for Forrestal. 22 Jun 48. and Lu. SccOd to Sen. Lodge. 24 Jun 48. both in 051-1-3. SccOcf files. 

H Memo. James Forrestal for President, 28 May 48. Secretary's File (PSF), Harry S. Truman Library. 

H Memo, Prcsidendor SecOcl, I Ju n 48. Secretary's File (PSF), Truman Library. 

))Note, SccOef for President, 31 May 48, sub: Conversation With Senator Taft, Secretary's File (PSF), 

Truman Library. 
THE PRESIDENT INTERVENES 309 

and his immediate subordinates exercised during the last months of the war. 

Yet this .authority was precisely what he lacked in his new office, where his 

power was limited tO only a general control over intransigent services that still 

insisted on their traditional autonomy. 

In any case, by 1948 there was no hope for widespread reform through a 

step-by-step demonstration of the practicality and reasonableness of integration. 

Too much of the remaining opposition was emotional, rooted in prejudice and 

tradition, to yield to any but forceful methods. If the services were to be integrated in the short run, integration would have to be forced upon them. 

Executive Order 9981 

Although politics was only one of several factors that led to Executive Order 

9981, the order was born during a presidential election campaign, and its content and timing reflect that fact. Having made what could be justified as a 

military decision in the interest of a more effective use of manpower in the 

armed forces, the President and his advisers sought to capitalize on the political 

benefits that might accrue from it. 6 The work of the President's Committee on 

Civil Rights and Truman's subsequent message to Congres$ had already elevated 

civil rights to the level of a major campaign issue. As early as November 1947 

Clark Clifford, predicting the nomination of Thomas Dewey and Henry 

Wallace, had advised the President to concentrate on winning the allegiance of 

the nation's minority voters, especially the black, labor, and Jewish blocs.H Clifford had discounted the threat of a southern defection, but in the spring of 1948 

southern Democrats began to turn from the party, and the black vote, an important element in the big city Democratic vote since the formation of the 

Roosevelt coalition, now became in the minds of the campaign planners an 

essential ingredient in a Truman victory. Through the effortS of Oscar Ewing, 

head of the Federal Security Administration and White House adviser on civil 

rights matters, and several other politicians, Harry Truman was cast in the role 

of minority rights champion. 8 

Theirs was not a difficult ta.sk, for the President's identification with the civil 

rights movement had become part of the cause of his unpopularity in some 

Democratic circles and a threat to his renomination. He overcame the attempt to 

deny him the presidential nomination in June, and he accepted the strong civil 

rights platform that emerged from the convention. The resolution committee of 

that convention had proposed a mild civil rights plank in the hope of preventing 

the defection of southern delegates, but in a dramatic floor fight Hubert H. 

Humphrey, the mayor of Minneapolis and a candidate for the U.S. Senate, 

forced through one of the strongest civil rights statements in the history of the 

parry. This plank endorsed Truman's congressional message on civil rights and 

56Intcrv. Nichols with Ewing; lruerv, Blumcnson with Leva. 

$7Mcmo, Clark Clifford for President. 19 Nov 47; ibid .. 17 Aug 48, sub: The 1948 Campaign; both in 

Truman Library. See also Cabell B. Phillips. The Truman PreJidmcy (New York: Macmillan. 1966), pp. 

198-99. and McCoy and Ructtcn. Quest and Response, ch. VI. 

$

8Jmerv. Nichols with Ewing. 
310 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

called for "Congess to support our President in guaranteeing these basic and 

fundamental rights ... the right of equal treatment in the service and defense 

of our nation.' •)9 

Truman admitted to Forrestal rhat ''he had not himself wanted to go as far 

as the Democratic platform went on the civil rights issue.'' The President had no 

animus toward those who voted against the platform; he would have done the 

same if he had come from their states. But he was determined to run on the 

platform, and for him, he later said, a platform was not a window dressing. His 

southern colleagues understood him. When a reporter pointed our to Governor 

Strom Thurmond of South Carolina that the President had only accepted a platform similar to those supported by Roosevelt, the governor answered, "I agree, 

but Truman really means it.' '

60 After the platform fight the Alabama and 

Mississippi delegates walked out of the convenrion. The Dixiecrat revolt was on 

in earnest. 

Both the Democratic platform and the reporr of the President's Civil Rights 

Committee referred to discrimination in the federal government, a matter obviously susceptible to presidential action. For once the "do-nothing" Congress 

could not be blamed, and if Truman failed to act prompcly he would only invite 

the wrath of the civil rights forces he was trying to court. Aware of rhis political 

necessity, the President's advisers had been studying the areas in which the 

President alone might act in forbidding discrimination as well as the mechanics 

by which he might make his actions effective. According to Oscar Ewing, the advisers had decided as early as October 1947 that the best way to handle 

discrimination in the federal government was to issue a presidential order securing the civil rights of both civilian government employees and members of the 

armed forces. In the end the President decided to issue two executive orders. 61 

Clifford, Ewing, and Philleo Nash, who was a presidential specialist on 

minority matters, worked on drafting both orders. After consulting with 

Truman Gibson, Nash proposed that the order directed to the services should 

create a committee within the military establishment to push for integration, 

one similar to the McCloy committee in World War II. Like Gibson, Nash was 

convinced that change in the armed forces racial policy would come only 

through a series of steps initiated in each service. By such steps progress had 

been made in the Navy through its Special Programs Unit and in the Army 

through the efforts of the McCloy committee. Nash argued against the 

publication of an executive order that spelled out integration or condemned 

segregation. Rather, let the order to the services call for equal treatment and 

opportunity-the language of the Democratic platform. Tie it to military 

efficiency, letting the services discover, under guidance from a White House 

committee, the inefficiency of segregation. The services would quickly 

conclude, the advisers assumed, that equal treatment and opportunity were 

)

9Quotcd in Memo, Leva for SccDef. I~ Jul <18, 0~4-1-3. SccDd files. 60Quotcd in Truman, Memoirs, II: 183: see also Inrerv, Nichols with Truman. and Millis, Forreua/ Diaries, 

p. 4~8. 

"'Jnrcrv. Nicholswirh Ewing. 
THE PRESIDENT INTERVENES 311 

impossible in a segregated system.62 After a series of discussio1'Is with the 

President, Nash, Clifford, and Ewing drew up a version of the order to the 

services along the lines suggested by Nash. 63 

The draft underwent one significant revision at the request of the Secretary 

of Defense. In keeping with his theory that the services should be given the 

chance to work out their own methods of compliance with the order to 

integrate, Forrestal wanted no deadlines set. To keep antagonisms to a 

minimum he wanted the order to call simply for progress "as rapidly as 

feasible .'' The President agreed. 64 

The timing of the order w:as politically important to Truman, and by late 

July the White House was extremely anxious to publish the document. The 

President now had his all-important selective service legislation; he was 

beginning to campaign on a platform calling for a special session of Congress-a 

Congress dominated by Republicans, who had also just approved a party 

platform calling for an end to segregation in the armed forces. Haste was evident 

in the fact that the order, along with copies for the service secretaries, was sent to 

the Secretary of Defense on the morning of 26 July- the day it was issued- for 

comment and review by that afternoon. ~ The order was also submitted to 

Walter White and A. Philip Randolph before it was issued.66 

Actually, the order had been read to Forrestal on the evening of the previous 

day, and his office had suggested one more change. Marx Leva believed that the 

order would be improved if it mentioned the fact that substantial progress in 

civil rights had been made during the war and in the years thereafter. Since a 

sentence to this effect had been included in Truman's civil rights message of 

February, Leva thought it would be well to include it in the executive order. 

Believing also that policy changes ought to be the work of the government or of 

the executive branch of the government rather than of the President alone, he 

offered a sentence for inclusion: " To the extent that this policy has not yet been 

completely implemented, such alterations or improvements in existing rules, 

procedures and practices as may be necessary shall be put into effect as rapidly as 

possible." Although Forrestal approved the sentence, it was not accepted by the 

President.67 

Approvals were quickly gathered from interested cabinet officials. The Attorney General passed on the form and legality of the order. Forrestal was certain that Stuart Symington of the Air Force and John L. Sullivan, Secretary of 

the Navy, would approve the order, but he suggested that Oscar Ewing discuss 

the draft with Kenneth Royall. According to Ewing, the Secretary of the Army 

62

Memo, Niles for Clifford, 12 May 48; Memo, Clifford for SecDef, 13 May 48. Nash Collection. Truman Library. 

63Jnrerv, Nichols with Ewing. 

f.4Nichols, Breakthrough on the Color Front, p. 86. 

Ltr, DonaldS. Dawson, Admin Asst to the President, to SecDef. 26 Jul48. The executive order on equal 

opportunity for federal employees was also issued on 26 July. 66Columbia University Oral Hist lmerv with Wilkins. 

67Memo. Leva for Forrestal, 26 Jul 48, SccDcf files. 
312 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES. 1940-1965 

read the order twice and said. "cell the President that I not only, have no objections but wholeheartedly approve, and we'll go along with it. " 68 

The historic document, signed by Truman on 26 July 1948, read as follows: 

EXECUTIVE ORDER 9981 

Whereas it is essential that there be maintained in the armed services of the United 

States the highest standards of democracy, with equality of treatment and opportunity 

for all those who serve in our country's defense: 

Now, therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me as Presidem of the United 

Stares, and as Commander in Chief of the armed services, it is hereby ordered as follows: 

1. It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President chat there shall be equality 

of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard ro 

race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as 

possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes 

without impairing efficiency or morale. 

2. There shall be created in the National Military Establishment an advisory com· 

mince to be known as the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, which shall be composed of seven members to be 

designated by the President. 

3. The Committee is authorized on behalf of the President to examine imo the 

rules, procedures and practices of the armed services in order to determine in what 

respect such rules, procedures and practices may be altered or improved with a view ro 

carrying out the policy of this order. The Committee shall confer and advise with the 

Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, and the 

Secretary of the Air Force, and shall make such recommendations to the President and to 

said Secretaries as in the judgment of the Committee will effectuate the policy hereof. 

4. All executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government are auth· 

orized and directed ro cooperate with the Comminee in its work. and ro furnish the 

Committee such information or the services of such persons as the Committee may require in the performance of its duties. 

5. When requested by the Committee co do so, persons in the armed services or in 

any of the executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall testify 

before the Committee and shall make available for the use of the Committee such 

documents and other information as the Committee may require . 6. The Committee shall continue to exist until such time as the President shall terminate its existence by Executive Order. 

The White House 

July 26, 1948 

HARRY S. TRUMAN 

As indicated by the endorsement of such diverse protagonists as Royall and 

Randolph, the wording of the executive order was in pan both vague and 

misleading. The vagueness was there by design. The failure to mention either 

segregation or imegration puzzled many people and angered others. but it was 

certainly to the advantage of a president who wanted co give the least offense 

possible to voters who supported segregation. In fact integration was not the 

precise word to describe the complex social change in the armed forces demanded by civil rights leaders, and the emphasis on equality of treatmem and 

opportunity with its portent for the next generation was particularly ap1

" Imerv, Nichols with Ewing; Ltt. A tty Gcn to President. 26jul48. 1285-0. copy in Eisenhower Library. 
THE PRESIDENT INTERVENES 313 

propriate. Truman, however, was not allowed to remain vague for long. Questioned at his first press conference after the order was issued, the President refused to set a time limit, but he admitted that he expected the order to abolish 

racial segregation in the armed forces. 

69 The order was also misleading when it 

created the advisory committee "in" the National Military Establishment. 

Truman apparently intended to create a presidential committee to oversee the 

manpower policies of all the services, and despite the wording of the order the 

committee would operate as a creature of the White House, reporting to the 

President rather than to the Secretary of Defense. 

The success of the new policy would depend to a great extent, as friends and 

foes of integration alike recognized, on the ability and inclination of this committee. The final choice of members was the President's, but he conspicuously 

involved the Democratic National Committee, the Secretary of Defense, and 

the Secretary of the Army. He repeatedly solicited Forrestal's suggestions, and it 

was apparent that the views of the Pentagon would carry much weight in the 

final selection. Just four days after the publication of Executive Order 9981, the 

President's administrative assistant, DonaldS. Dawson, wrote Forrestal that he 

would be glad co talk to him about the seven members. 70 Before Forrestal 

replied he had Leva discuss possible nominees with the three military departments and obtain their recommendations. The Pentagon's list went to the 

White House on 3 August. A list compiled subsequently by Truman's advisers, 

chiefly Philleo Nash and Oscar Ewing, and approved by the Democratic National Committee, duplicated a number of Forrestal's suggestions; its additions 

and deletions revealed the practical political considerations under which the 

White House had to operate.71 

By mid-September the committee was still unformed . The White House had 

been unable to get either Frank Graham, president of the University of North 

Carolina, a member of the President's Committee on Civil Rights, and the first 

choice of both the White House and the Pentagon for chairman, or Charles E. 

Wilson, second choice, to accept the chairmanship. Secretary of the Army Royall 

was particularly incensed that some of the men being considered for the committee ''have publicly expressed their opinion in favor of abolishing segregation 

in the Armed Services. At least one of them, Lester Grainger [sic], has been 

critical both of the Army and of me personally on this particular matter. " 72 

Royall wanted no one asked to serve on the President's committee who had fixed 

opinions on segregation, and 'certainly no one who had made a public pronouncement on the subject. He wanted the nominees questioned to make sure 

they could give "fair consideration" to the subject. 73 Royall favored Jonathan 

Daniels, Ralph McGill of the Atlanta Constitution, Colgate Darden, president 

of the University of Virginia, and Douglas Southall Freeman, distinguished 

6

9Presidemial News Conference, 29 Jul48, Public Papers of the President, 1948, p. 422. 70Ltr, Dawson to Forrcstal, 30 Jul48, SecDcf files. 7 1

Mcmos, Leva for Forrcstal, 3 and 12 Aug 48; Ltr. Forrestal to President. 3 Aug 48. 054- 1-3. SccDd 

files. 72Ltr, Royall to President. 17 Sep 48, OSA 291.2 (1 7 Scp 48). 73Jbid. 
314 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Richmond historian. 

74 Names continued to be bruited about. Dawson asked 

Forrestal if he had any preferences for Reginald E. Gillmor, president of Sperry 

Gyroscope, or Julius Ochs Adler, noted publisher and former military aide to 

Secretary Stimson, as possibilities for chairman. Forrestal inclined toward Adler; 

"I believe he would be excellent although as a Southerner he might have 

limiting views.' •n 

With the election imminent, the need for an announcement on the 

membership of the committee became pressing. On 16 September Dawson told 

Leva that a chairman and five of the six members had been selected and had 

agreed to serve: Charles Fahy, chairman, Charles Luckman, Lester Granger, 

John H. Sengstacke, Jacob Billikopf, and Alphonsus J. Donahue. The sixth 

member, still uninvited , was to be Dwight Palmer. Dawson said he would wait 

on this appointment until Forrestal had time to consider it, but two days later he 

was back, telling the secretary that the President had instructed him to release 

the names. There was final change: William E. Stevenson's name was 

substituted for Billikopf' s. 76 

Although only two of Forrestal's nominees, Lester Granger and John 

Sengstacke, survived the selection process, the final membership was certainly 

acceptable to the Secretary of Defense. Charles Fahy was suggested by presidential assistant David K. Niles, who described the soft-voiced Georgian as a 

"reconstructed southerner liberal on race . " A lawyer and former Solicitor 

General, Fahy had a reput-ation for sensitive handling of delicate problems, 

''with quiet authority and the punch of a mule.'' Granger's appointment was a 

White House bow to Forrestal and a disregard for Royall's objections. 

Sengscacke, a noted black publisher suggested by Forrestal and Ewing and supported by William L. Dawson, the black congressman from Chicago, was appointed in deference to the black press. Moreover, he had supported Truman's 

reelection" in unqualified terms." William Stevenson was the president of 

Oberlin College and was stongly recommended by Lloyd K. Garrison, president 

of the National Urban League. Finally, there was a trio of businessmen on the 

committee: Donahue was a Connecticut industrialist, highly recommended by 

Senator Howard J. McGrath of Rhode Island and Brian McMahon of Connecticut; Luckman was president of Lever Brothers and a native of Kansas City, 

Missouri; and Dwight Palmer was president of the General Cable Corporation. 

77 

These were the men with whom, for a time at least, the Secretary of Defense 

would share his direction over the racial policies of the armed forces. 

74Memo. Royall for Forrescal , 10 Scp 48, OSA 29 1.2 ( 10 Sep 48). 7 )Mcmo, Leva for Forrcstal, I Scp 48, and Handwritte n Note by Forrcstal, D54-L-3. SccDcf files. 76Mcmo, Leva for Forrestal, 18 Sep 48, D54- 1- 3, SecDef files. 771nterv. Nichols with Ewing; Incetv. Blume nson with Leva. Donahue resigned for health reasons shortly 

after the committee began its work; sec Ltc, Donahue to Truman, 23 May 49. Truman Library. Luckman did 

not participate at all in the commiuee's work or sign irs report. The committee's active members, in addition 

to its chairman, were Granger. Sengstacke, Palmer, and Stevenson. 
CHAPTER 13 

Service Interests Versus Presidential 

Intent 

Several months elapsed between the appointment of the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services and its 

first meeting, a formal session with the President at the White House on 12 

January 1949. Actually, certain advantages accrued from the delay, for postponing the meetings until after the President's reelection enabled the committee to 

face the services with assurance of continued support from the administration. 

Renewed presidential backing was probably necessary, considering the services' 

deliberations on race policy during this half-year hiatus. Their reactions to the 

order, logical outgrowths of postwar policies and practices, demonstrated how 

their perceived self-interests might subvert the President's intentions. The 

events of this six-month period also began to show the relative importance of the 

order and the parochial interests of the services as factors in the integration of 

the armed forces. 

Public Reaction to Executive Order 9981 

Considering the substantial changes it promised, the President's order provoked surprisingly little public opposition. Its publication coincided with the 

convening of the special session of a Congress smarting under Truman's "donothing" label. In this charged political atmosphere, the anti-administration 

majority in Congress quietly sidestepped the President's 27 July call for civil 

rights legislation. To do otherwise would only have added to the political profits 

already garnered by Truman in some important voting areas. For the same 

reason congressional opponents avoided all mention of Executive Order 9981, 

although the widely expected defeat of Truman and the consequent end to this 

executive sally into civil rights might have contributed co the silence. Besides, 

segregationists could do little in an immediate legislative way to counteract the 

presidential command. Congress had already passed the Selective Service Act 

and Defense Appropriations Act, the most' suitable vehicles for amendments 

aimed at modifying the impact of the integration order. National elections and 

the advent of a new Congress precluded any other significant moves in this 

direction until later in the next year. 

Yet if it was ignored in Congress, the order was nevertheless a clear signal to 

the friends of integration and brought with it a tremendous surge of hope to the 

black community. Publishing the order made Harry Truman the "darling of the 

Negroes," Roy Wilkins said later. Nor did the coincidence of its publication to 

the election, he added, bother a group that was becoming increasingly 
316 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

pragmatic about the reasons for social reform. 1 Both the declaredly Democratic 

Chicago Defender and Republican-oriented Pittsburgh Courier were aware of 

the implications of the order. The Defender ran an editorial on 7 August under 

the heading "Mr. Truman Makes History." The "National Grapevine" column 

of Charlie Cherokee in the same issue promised its readers a blow-by-blow 

description of the events surrounding the President's action. An interview in the 

same issue with Col. Richard L. Jones, black commander of the 178th Regimental Combat Team (Illinois), emphasized the beneficial effects of the proposed 

integration, and in the next issue, 14 August, the editor broadened the discussion with an editorial entitled "What About Prejudice?" 2 The Courier, for its 

part, questioned the President's sincerity because he had not explicitly called for 

an end to segregation. At the same time it contrasted the futility of civil disobedience with the efficiency of such an order on the services, and while maintaining its support for the candidacy of Governor Dewey the paper revealed a strong 

enthusiasm for President Truman's civil rights program. 

3 

These affirmations of support for Executive Order 9981 in the major black 

newspapers fitted in nearly with the administration's political strategy. Nor was 

the Democratic National Committee averse to using the order to win black 

votes. For example it ran a half-page advertisement in the Defender under the 

heading "By His Deeds Shall Ye Know Him."4 At the same time, not wishing 

to antagonize the opponents of integration further, the administration made no 

special effort to publicize the order in the metropolitan press. Consequently, 

when the order was mentioned at all, it was usually carried without commenc, 

and the few columnists who treated the subject did so with some caution. Arthur Krock's "Reform Attempts Aid Southern Extremists" in the New York 

Times, for example, lauded the President's civil rights initiatives but warned 

that any attempt to force social integration would only strengthen demagogues 

at the expense of moderate politicians.~ 

If the President's wooing of the black voter was good election politics, his executive order was also a successful practical response to the threat of civil disobedience and the failure of the Secretary of Defense to strive actively for racial 

equality throughout the services. Declaring the President's action a substantial 

gain, A. Philip Randolph canceled the call for a boycott of the draft, leaving 

only a small number of diehards to continue the now insignificant effort. The 

black leaders who had participated in Secretary Forrestal's National Defense 

Conference gave the President their full support, and Donald S. Dawson, administrative assistant to the President, was able to assure Truman chat the black I 

press, now completely behind the committee on equal treatment and opportunity, had abandoned its vigorous campaign against the Army's racial policy.6 

1

Columbia University Oral Hist lnterv with Wilkins. 2

Chicago Dejmder. August 7 and August 14 , 1948. 3Pittsburgh Courier. August 7, August 28, and September 2~. 1948. 4ChicagoDefmder, August21, 1948. 

~New York Times, September 12. 1948. 

6Mcmo, Donald Dawson for President, 9 Scp 48, Nash Collection, Truman Library; Memo, SecDcf for 

[Clark) Clifford, 2 Aug 48. and Ltr, Bayard Rustin of the Campaign to Resist Military Segregarion tO James V. 

l'orrcsaal. 20 Aug 48; both in 054- 1- L4, SccDcf files. It should be noted that Dawson's claim rhar the black 
SERVICE INTERESTS VERSUS PRESIDENTIAL INTENT 317 

Ironically, the most celebrated pronouncement on segregation at the moment of the Truman order came not from publicists or politicians but from the 

Army's new Chief of Staff, General Omar N. Bradley. 7 Speaking to a group of 

instructors at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and unaware of the President's order and 

the presence of the press, Bradley declared that the Army would have to retain 

segregation as long as it was the national pattern. 8 This statement prompted 

questions at the President's next news conference, letters to the editor, and 

debate in the press.9 Bradley later explained that he had supported the Army's 

segregation. policy because he was against making the Army an instrument of 

social change in areas of the country which still rejected integration. 10 His comment, as amplified and broadcast by military analyst Hanson W. Baldwin, summarized the Army's position at the time of the Truman order. " It is extremely 

dangerous nonsense," Baldwin declared, "to try to make the Army other than 

one thing-a fighting machine." By emphasizing that the Army could not afford to differ greatly in customs, traditions, and prejudices from the general 

population, Baldwin explained, Bradley was only underscoring a major 

characteristic of any large organization of conscripts. Most import, Baldwin 

pointed out, the Chief of Staff considered an inflexible order for the immediate 

integration of all troops one of the surest ways to break down the morale of the 

Army and destroy its efficiency. 11 

But such arguments were under attack by the very civil rights groups the 

President was trying to court. "Are we to understand that the President's promise to end discrimination,'' one critic asked, 

was made for some other purpose than to end discrimination in its worst form- segregation? General Bradley's statement, subsequent to the President's orders, would seem to 

indicate that the President either did not mean what he said or his orders were not being 

obeyed. We should like to point out that General Bradley's reported observation ... 

was decidedly wide of the mark. Segregation is the legal pattern of only a few of our 

most backward states . ... In view of the trends in law and social practice, it is high 

time that the Defense forces were not used as brakes on progress toward genuine 

democracy. 12 

General Bradley apologized to the President for any confusion caused by his 

statement, and Truman publicly sloughed off the affair, but not before he stated 

to the press that his order specifically directed the integration of the armed 

forces. 13 It was obvious that the situation had developed into a standoff. Some 

press universally supported the executive order has not been accepted by all commentators; sec McCoy and 

Ruettcn, Quest and Response, p . 130. 7Bradley succeeded Eisenhower as Chief of Staff on 7 Fcbwary 1948. 

8Washington Post, July 28, 1948; Atlanta Com11iution. July 28, 1948. 

9News Conference, 29 Jul48. Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S. Truman, 1948, p. 165; New York 

Times, July 30. 1948; Chicago Defmder, August 7, 1948; Pittsburgh Courier. August 21, 1948; Washington 

Post, August 23, 1948. 

IOinterv, Nichols with Bradley. 11 Hanson Baldwin, "Segregation in the Army," New York Times, August 8, 1948. 12Ltr. A. A. Heist. Dir. American Civil Liberties Union, South California Branch, to Forrcsral, 7 Scp 48. 

054- 1- 4, SecOcf files. 

llltrs, Bradley to President Truman. 30 Jul 48. and Truman to Bradley. 4 Aug 48. CSUSA 291.2 (4 Aug 

48). Sec also Ltr, SA to President, 29 Jul48, OSA 291.2 (Negroes) (7-29-48). 
318 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

of the President's most outspoken supporters would not let him forget his integration order, and the Army, as represented by its Chief of Staff, failed to 

realize that events were rapidly moving beyond the point where segregation 

could be considered a workable policy for an agency of the United States government. 

The Army: Segregation on the Defensive 

The President's order heralded a series of attacks on the Army's race policy. 

As further evidence of the powerful pressures for change, several state governors 

now challenged segregation in the National Guard. Generally the race policy of 

the reserve components echoed that of the Regular Army, in part because it 

seemed logical that state units, subject to federal service, conform to federal 

standards of performance and organization. Accordingly, in the wake of the 

publication of the Gillem Board Report, the Army's Director of Personnel and 

Administration recommended to the Committee on National Guard Policy14 

that it amend its regulation on the employment of black troops to conform more 

closely with the new policy. Specifically, General Paul asked the committee to 

spell out the prohibition against integration of white and black troops below 

battalion level, warning that federal recognition would be denied any state unit 

organized in violation of this order. ~ 

Agreeing to comply with General Paul's request, the National Guard Committee went a step further and recommended that individual states be permitted to make their own decisions on the wisdom and utility of organizing 

separate black units. 16 The Army staff rejected this proposal, however, on the 

grounds that it gave too much discretionary power to the state guard 

authorities. 17 Interestingly enough in view of later developments, neither the 

committee nor the staff disputed the War Department's right to withhold 

federal recognition in racial matters, and both displayed little concern for the 

14As provided in various laws since 1920. most notably in Section V of the amendments to the National 

Defense Act, members of the General Staff's Committee on National Guard Policy and Committee on 

Reserve Policy were the principal advisers to the Secretary of War on reserve component matters. All questions 

regarding these organizations were referred to the committees. which usually met in combined session as the 

Committee on National Guard and Reserve Policy. The combined comminee was composed of twenty-one of. 

ficcrs, seven each from the Regular Army, the guard, and the reserves. When the business under consideration 

was restricted exdusivcly to one of the reserve components, the representatives of the other would absent 

themselves, the remaining members, along with the Regular Army members. reconstituting themselves as the 

Committee on National Guard Policy or the Committee on Reserve Policy. These groups, familiarly known as 

the ''Section V Comminees,'' wielded considerable power in the development of the postwar program for the 

reserves. 

lSMcmo, Chief, Classification and Personnel Actions Br, P&A, for Brig Gcn Ira Swift, Chief, Liaison, 

Planning and Policy Coordination Gp, P&A, 8 Apr 47, sub: Resolution Regarding Employment of Negro 

Troops in the National Guard: Memo. Dir. P&A, for Dir, Intel, 9 Apr 47, same sub: both in WDGPA 291.2 

(3 AP.r47). 

lGDF. WDGS Cmte on National Guard Policy, to Chief. NGB, 20 May 47. sub: Integration of Negro 

Troops; idem co Dir, P&A, and Dir, O&T, same date and sub. See also Ltr. Maj Gen Kenneth F. Cramer. CG, 

43d In£ Div (Conn. NG) to Col Russell Y. Moore. OCofS. 17 Mar 47. All in Office file. Army Reserve Forces 

Policf Cmte. 1 Memo, Dir, O&T, for WDGS Cmte on National Guard Policy, 23 Jun 47. sub: Integration of Negro 

Troops, WDGOT 291.2. 
SERVICE INTERESTS VERSUS PRESIDENTIAL INTENT 319 

principle of states' rights. Their attitude was important, for while the prohibition against integration sat well in some circles, it drew severe criticism in others. 

Unlike the Regular Army, the National Guard and the Army Reserve were composed of units deeply rooted in the local community, each reflecting the 

parochial attitudes of its members and its section. This truth was forcefully 

pointed out to the Army staff in 1946 when it tried to reactivate the 313th Infantry and designate it as a black unit in the 79th Division (Pennsylvania). 

Former members of the old white 313th, now prominent citizens, expressed 

their ''very strong sentiments'' on the matter, and the Army had to beat a hasty 

retreat. In the future, the staff decided, either black reserve units would be 

given the name and history of inactive black units or new units would be constituted. 18 

On the other hand, in 1947 citizen groups sprang up in Connecticut, New 

York, New Jersey, Ohio, and California to agitate among their state adjutants 

general for liberalization of the National Guard's racial policy. As early as 

February 1947 Governor James L. McConnaughy had publicly deplored segregation of Negroes in his own Connecticut National Guard. Adopting the states' 

rights stance more commonly associated with defenders of racial discrimination, 

Governor McConnaughy argued that by requiring segregation the War Department ran contrary to the wishes of individual states. Marcus Ray, the secretary's 

adviser on race, predicted that integration in the reserve components would continue to be a "point of increasing pressure ." As he pointed out to Assistant 

Secretary Petersen, the Army had always supported segregation in its southern 

installations on the grounds that it had to conform with local mores. How then 

could it refuse to conform with the local statutes and customs of some northern 

states without appearing inconsistent? He recommended the Army amend its 

race policy to permit reserve components in states which wished it to integrate at 

a level consistent with ''local community attitudes.'' 19 

The Army staff would have nothing to do with Ray's suggestion. Instead, 

both the Director of Personnel and Administration and the Director of 

Organization and Training supported a new resolution by the National Guard 

Policy Committee that left the number of black units and the question of their 

integration with white units above the company level up to the states involved. 

Integration at the company level was prohibited, and such integrated companies 

would be denied federal recognition. The committee's resolution was adopted 

by the Secretary of War in May 194 7. 20 

But the fight was not over yet. In 1947 New Jersey adopted a new constitution that specifically prohibited segregation in the state militia. By extension no 

New Jersey National Guard unit could receive federal recognition. In February 

18Memo, Exec for Reserve and ROTC Affairs, O&T. for Dir, O&T. 22 jul 46; O&T Memo for Red. 12 Aug 

46; both in WDGOT 29 1.2. 

t9Mcmo. Ray for Petersen, 2 Apr 47. sub: Integration of Negro Personnel in the Reserve Components, 

ASW 291.2. 

20Mcmo, D/O&T for ASW, 17 Apr 47, sub: Integration of Negro Personnel in the Reserve Components, 

WDGOT 291.2; Memo, D/P&A thru 0/0&T for ASW. 10 Apr 47. same sub, WDGPA 291.2; OF. D/P&A 

to CofS , 20 May 47. sub: Integration of Negro Troops, CSUSA 291 .2 Negroes. 
320 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

MP'S HITCH A RIDE ON ARMY TANKS, AUGSBURG, GERMANY,l949 

1948 Governor McConnaughy brought Connecticut back into the fray, this time 

taking the matter up with the White House. A month later Governor Luther W. 

Youngdahl appealed to the Secretary of Defense on behalf of Negroes in the 

Minnesota National Guard. Secretary of the Army Royall quickly reappraised 

the situation and excepted New Jersey from the Army's segregation rule. 

Secretary Symington followed suit by excepting the New Jersey Air National 

Guard. 21 Royall also let the governors of Connecticut and Minnesota know that 

he would be inclined to make similar concessions to any state which, by 

legislative action, prohibited its governor from conforming to the federal requirements. At that time Connecticut and Minnesota had no such legislation, 

but Royall nevertheless agreed to refer their requests to his Committee on National Guard Policy. 22 

Here the secretary did no more than comply with the National Defense Act, 

which required that all National Guard policy matters be formulated in the 

committee. Privately, Royall admitted that he did not feel bound to accept a 

committee recommendation and would be inclined to recognize any state prohibition against segregation. But he made a careful distinction between consitutional or legislative action and executive action in the states. A governor's decision to integrate, he pointed out, would not be recognized by the Army because 

such an action was subject to speedy reversal by the governor's successor and 

21 Ltr, Kenneth Royall to Alfred Driscoll. 7 Feb 48; Ltr. W. Swan Symington to Driscoll. 17 Mar48; copies 

of both in CMH. 22Ltrs. SA to Luther Youngdahl and James C. Shannon, 20 May 48, both in OSA 291.2 Negroes 

{5-28-48); Memos. CofSA for Dir, O&T. 2 Jan and 9 Mar 48, sub: Utilization of Negroes in the National 

Guard. CSUSA 291.2. Shannon succeeded McConnaughy as governor of Connecticut in March 1948. 
SERVICE INTERESTS VERSUS PRESIDENTIAL INTENT 321 

could cause serious confusion in the guard. 23 The majority of the National 

Guard Committee, supported by the Director of Organization and Training, 

recommended that the secretary make no exceptions to the segregation policy. 

The Director of Personnel and Administration, on the other hand, joined with 

the committee's minority in recommending that Royall's action in the New 

Jersey case be used as a precedent. 24 Commenting independently, General 

Bradley warned Royall that integrating individual Negroes in the National 

Guard would, from a military point of view, "create problems which may have 

serious consequences in case of national mobilization of those units. ' •H 

Here the matter would stand for some time, the Army's segregation policy 

intact, but an informal allowance made for excepting individual states from prohibitions against integration below the company level. Yet the publicity and 

criticism attendant upon these decisions might well have given the traditionalists pause. While Secretary Royall, and on occasion his superior, Secretary 

of Defense Forrestal, reiterated the Army's willingness to accommodate certain 

states, 26 civil rights groups were gaining allies for another proposition. The 

American Veterans Committee had advanced the idea that to forbid integration 

at the platoon level was a retreat from World War II practice, and to accept the 

excuse that segregation was in the interest of national defense was to tolerate a 

"travesty on words." 27 Hearings were conducted in Congress in 1949 and 1951 

on bills H.R. i403 and H.R. 1389 to prohibit segregation in the National 

Guard . Royall's interpretation of the National Defense Act did not satisfy advocates of a thoroughly integrated guard, for it was clear that not many states 

were likely to petition for permission to integrate. At the same time the exceptions to the segregation rule promised an incompatible situation between the 

segregated active forces and the incompletely integrated reserve organization. 

Royall's ruling, while perhaps a short-term gain for traditionalists, was 

significant because it established a precedent that would be used by integrationists in later years. The price for defending the Army's segregation policy, 

guard officials discovered , was the surrender of their long-cherished claim of 

state autonomy. The committee's recommendation on the matter of applying 

the Gillem Board policy to the guard was inflexible, leaving no room for 

separate decisions by officials of the several states. Maj . Gen. Jim Dan Hill of the 

Wisconsin National Guard recognized this danger. Along with a minority of his 

colleagues he maintained that the decision on segregation ''will have to be 

2

3Rcmarks by Kenneth Royall in the Committee of Four, 9 Mar 48, OSD Historical Office files. 24P&A Summary Sheer. 7 Jul 48. sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the National Guard, WDGPA 

291.2; O&T Summary Sheer, 8 Apr 48, same sub. Sec also Memo, Col William Abendroth, Exec, Cmrc on 

NG and Reserve Policy. for CofSA, 30 Jun 48, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the National Guard of 

the United States, Office file. Army Reserve Forces Policy Cmte. Thirteen of the seventeen committee 

members concurred with the staff study without reservation; the remaining four concurred with the proviso 

that states prohibiting segregation be granted the right to integrate. 

n Memo, CofSA for SA, 7 Jul48, CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (I Jul48). 26See Ltrs, James Forresral to A. A. Heist, Dir. American Civil Liberties Union. 13 Sep 48. and Augustus 

F. Hawkins. 22 Sep 48; both in 0)4-1-2, SecDd files; OF. Dir, P&A . to CofSA. 2 Nov 49. sub: Executive 

Order to Permit Integration of Negroes lnto Minnesota National Guard, CSUSA 291 .2 Negroes (2 Nov 49). 27Ltr, J. Steward McClendon. Secy. Minneapolis Chapter, Am Vets Cmte, to SccDcf [sic) Royall, 28 May 

48, CSUSA 291 .2 Negroes (28 May 48). 
322 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

solved at the state level." 28 The committee majority argued the contrary, agreeing with Brig. Gen. Alexander G. Paxton of Mississippi t~at the National 

Defense Act of 1945 prohibited the sort of exception made in the New Jersey 

case. General Paxton called for a uniform policy for all guard units: 

National Security is an obligation of all the states, and its necessity in time of emergency 

transcends all local issues. Federal recognition of the National Guard units of the several 

States is extended for the purpose of affording these units a Federal status under the National Defense Act. The issue in question is purely one of compliance with Federal 

Law. 29 

Here was tacit recognition of federal supremacy over the National Guard. In 

supporting the right of the Secretary of the Army to dictate racial policy to state 

guards in 1948, the National Guard Committee adopted a position that would 

haunt it when the question of integrating the guard came up again in the early 

1960's. 

Despite the publicity given to General Bradley's comments at Fort Knox, it 

was the Secretary of the Army, not the Chief of Staff, who led the fight against 

change in the Army's racial practices. As the debate over these practices warmed 

i'n the administration and the national press, Kenneth C. Royall emerged as the 

principal spokesman against further integration and the principal target of the 

civil rights forces. Royall's sincere interest in the welfare of black soldiers, albeit 

highly paternalistic, was not in question. His trouble with civil rights officials 

stemmed from the fact chat he alone in the Truman administration still clung 

publicly to the belief that segregation was not in itself discrimination, a belief 

shared by many of his fellow citizens. Royall was convinced chat the separate but 

equal provisions of the Army's Gillem Board policy were right in as much as 

they did provide equal treatment and opportunity for the black minority. His 

opinion was reinforced by the continual assurances of his military subordinates 

that in open competition with white soldiers few Negroes would ever achieve a 

proportionate share of promotions and better occupations. And when his subordinates added to chis sentiment the notion that integration would disrupt the 

Army and endanger its efficiency, they quickly persuaded the already sympathetic Royall that segregation was nor only correct but imperative. 30 The 

secretary might easily have agreed with General Paul, who told an assembly of 

Army commanders that aside from some needed improvement in the employment of black specialists II there isn't a single complaint anyone can make in our 

use of the Negro. "31 

Secure in his belief that segregation was right and necessary, Royall confidently awaited the judgment of the recently appointed President's committee. 

He was convinced that any fair judge could draw but one conclusion: under th~ 

28Lrr. Maj Gen Jim Dan Hill, Wisconsin National Guard, tO Secy, WD Advisory Cmte, 24 Jun 48; see also 

Ltr. Brig Gcn Harry Evans, Maryland National Guard. to Col William Abendroth, Exec. Cmtc on NG and 

Reserve Policy, 22 Jun 48, Office file, Army Reserve Forces Policy Cmte. 

29Ltr, Brig GenA. G. Paxton, Mississippi National Guard, to Col William Abendroth, 13 May 1948, Of. 

fice file, Army Reserve Forces Policy Cmte. 

30Lrr. Marx Leva w author, 24 May 70, CMH files; see also Testimony of Royall at National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs. 26 Apr 48, copy in CMH . 

.l 1General Paul's Remarks at Army Commanders Conference, 30 Mar-2 Apr 48, p. 30, CSUSA 337. 
SERVICE INTERESTS VERSUS PRESIDENTIAL INTENT 323 

SECRETARY ROYALL REVIEWS MILITARY POLICE, Yokohama, Japan, 1949. 

provisions of Circular 124, Negroes had already achieved equal treatment and 

opportunity in the Army. His job, therefore, was relatively simple. He had to 

defend Army policy against outside attack and make sure it was applied 

uniformly throughout the service. His stand marked one of the last attempts by 

a major federal official to support a racially separate but equal system before the 

principle was finally struck down by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of 

Education. 

Royall readily conceded that it was proper and necessary for Negroes to insist 

on integration, but, echoing a long-cherished Army belief, he adamantly opposed using the Army to support or oppose any social cause. The Army, he contended, must follow the nation, not lead it, in social matters. The Army must 

not experiment. When, "without prejudice to the National Defense," the 

Army could reduce segregation to the platoon level it would do so, but all such 

steps should be taken one at a time. And 1948. he told the conference of black 

leaders in April of that year, was not the time. 32 

Convinced of the rightness of the Army's policy, Secretary Royall was 

understandably agitated by the unfavorable pu blicity directed at him and his 

department. The publicity, he was convinced, resulted from discrimination on 

32See Testimony of Royall at National Defense Conference: on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48. pp. 24-26. 
324 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

the parr of "the Negro and liberal press" against the Army's policy in favor of 

the Navy and Air Force. He was particularly incensed at the way the junior services had escaped the "rap" - his word- on racial matters. He ascribed it in 

large part, he told the Secretary of Defense in September 1948, to the ''unfortunate" National Defense Conference, the gathering of black spokesmen 

held under Forrestal's auspices the previous spring. 33 The specific object of 

Royall's indignation was Lester Granger's final report on the work of the National Defense Conference. That report emphasized the conferees' rebuttal to 

Royall's defense of segregation on the grounds of military expediency and past 

experience with black soldiers. The Army has assumed a position, Granger 

claimed, that was unjustified by its own experience. Overlooking evidence to 

the contrary, Granger added that the Army position was at variance with the experience of the other services. His parting shot was aimed at the heart of the 

Army's argument: "It is as unwise as it is unsound to cite the resistance of 

military leadership against basic changes in policy as sufficient cause for delaying 

immediate and effective action.'' 34 

Adding to Royall's discomfort, Forrestal released the report on 8 September, 

and his letter of appreciation to Granger and the conferees assured them he 

would send their report to the President's committee. The New York Times 

promptly picked up Granger's reference to opposition among military leadersY 

Royall tried to counter this attack. Since neither the President nor the Secretary 

of Defense had disapproved the Army's racial policy nor suggested any 

modifications, Royall told Forrestal he wanted him to go on record as approving 

the Army position. This course would doubtless be more palatable to Forrestal, 

Royall suggested, than having Royall announce that Forrestal had given tacit approval to the Army's policy. 36 

Forrestal quickly scotched this maneuver. It was true, he told Royall, that the 

Army's policy had not been disapproved. But neither had the Army's policy or 

that of the Navy or Air Force yet been reviewed by the Secretary of Defense. The 

President's committee would probably make such a review an early order of 

business. Meanwhile, the Army's race policy would continue in effect until it 

was altered either by Forrestal 's office or by action from some other source. 37 

Even as Secretary Royall tried to defend the Army from the attacks of the 

press, the service's policy was challenged from another quarter. The blunt fact 

was that with the reinstitution of selective service in 1948 the Army was receiving more black recruits-especially those in the lower mental categories-than a 

segregated system could easily absorb. The high percentage of black soldiers so 

proudly publicized by Royall at the National Defense Conference was in fact a 

source of anxiety for Army planners. The staff particularly resented the different 

33Memo, SA for SecOcf, 22 Sep 48, copy in C030-I-2, SecOcf files. 

34Ltr, Granger and Conferees to Forrestal. 26 Aug 48, 054- I-3, SecDcJ files. 

3)NME Press Release, 8 Sep 48; New York Times, September 9. 1948; Memo, Leva for Forrestal, 30 Aug 

48; Ltr, Forrcstal to Granger, 30 Aug 48. Last rwo in 054- l-3. SecOef files. 

36Memo, SA for SccOcf, 22 Scp 48, copy in C030-l-2, SecOcf files. 

37Memo (unsigned), Forrestal for Royall, 22 Sep 48. The answer was prepared by Leva and used by Forrcstal as the basis for his conversation with Royall. Sec Memos. Leva for Forrestal, undated, and 30 Sep 48, 

both in C030-J-2, SecOeffiles. 
SERVICE INTERESTS VERSUS PRESIDENTIAL INTENT 325 

standards adopted by the other services to determine the acceptability of 

selectees. The Navy and Air Force, pleading their need for skilled workers and 

dependence on volunteer enlistments, imposed a higher minimum achievement 

score for admission than the Army, which, largely dependent upon the draft for 

its manpower, was required co accept men with lower scores. Thousands of 

Negroes, less skilled and with little education, were therefore eligible for service 

in the Army although they were excluded from the Navy and Air Force. Given 

such circumstances, it was probably inevitable that differences in racial policies 

would precipitate an imerservice conflict. The Army claimed the difference in 

enlistment standards was discriminatory and contrary to the provisions of the 

draft law which required the Secretary of Defense to set enlistment standards. In 

April 1948 Secretary Royall demanded that Forrestal impose the same mental 

standards on all the services. He wanted inductees allocated to the services 

according to their physical and mental abilities and Negroes apportioned among 

them. 

The other services countered that there were not enough well-educated people of draft age to justify raising the Army's mental standards to the Navy and 

Air Force levels, but neither service wanted to lower its own entrance standards 

to match the level necessity had imposed on the Army. The Air Force eventually 

agreed to enlist N egroes at a 10 percent ratio to whites, but the Navy held out 

for higher standards and no allocation by race. It contended that setting the 

same standards for all services would improve the quality of the Army's black 

enlistees only imperceptibly while it would do great damage to the Navy. The 

Navy admitted that the other services should help the Army, but not "up co the 

point of tmnecessarily reducing their own effectiveness .. .. The modern Navy 

cannot operate its ships and aircraft with personnel of G. C. T. 70. " 38 General 

Bradley cut to the point: if the Navy carried the day it would receive substantially fewer Negroes than the other two services and a larger portion of the best 

qualified. 39 Secretary Forrestal first referred the interservice controversy to the 

Munitions Board in May 1948 and later that summer to a special interservice 

committee. After both groups failed to reach an agreement, 4

° Forrestal decided 

not to force a parity in mental standards upon the services. On 12 October he explained to the secretaries that parity could be imposed only during time of full 

mobilization, and since conditions in the period between October 1948 and 

June 1949 could not be considered comparable to those of full mobilization, 

parity was impossible. He promised, however, to study the qualitative needs of 

each service. Meanwhile, he had found no evidence that any service was discriminating in the selection of enlistees and settled for a warning that any 

38Mcmo, SccNav for SecDef, 27 May 48, sub: Liaison With the Selective Service System and Dctcrmina· 

tion of Parity Standards, PJ4- 6; Memo. Actg SecNav for SccDef, 17 Aug 48; sub: Items in Disagreement Be· 

tween the Services as listed in SecDcf's Memo of 15 Jul 48, P 14-4: both in GcnRccsNav. The q uotation is 

from an inclosure to the Iauer memo. 

39CofSA, Rpt of War Council Min, 3 Aug 48, copy in OSD Historical Office files. 4

°For a detailed analysis of the various service arguments and positions, sec Office of the Secretary of 

Defense, "Proposed Findings and Decisions on Questions of Parity of Mental Standards, Allocation of In· 

ductces According to Physical and Mental Capabilities and Allocation of Negroes" (Noble Report). 29 Oct 48, 

copy in SecDef files. 
326 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

serious discrimination by any two of the services would place "an intolerable 

burden" on the third. 41 

Convinced that Forrestal had made the wrong decision, the Army staff was 

nevertheless obliged to concern itself with the percentage of Negroes it would 

have to accept under the new selective service law. Although by November 1948 

the Army's black strength had dropped to 9.83 percent of the total, its proportion of Negroes was still large when compared with the Navy's 4.3 percent, the 

Marine Corps' 1. 79 percent, and the Air Force's 6 percent. Projecting these 

figures against the possible mobilization of five million men (assuming each service increased in proportion to its current strength and absorbed the same 

percentage of a black population remaining at 12 percent of the whole), the 

Army calculated that its low entrance requirements would give it a black 

strength of 21 percent. In the event of a mobilization equaling or surpassing 

that of World War II, the minimum test score of seventy would probably be 

lowered, and thus the Army would shoulder an even greater burden of poorly 

educated men, a burden that in the Army's view should be shared by all the services. 42 

A Dtfferent Approach 

No matter how the Army tried to justify segregation or argue against the 

position of the Navy and Air Force, the integrationists continued to gain 

ground. Royall, in opposition, adopted a new tactic in the wake of the Truman 

order. He would have the Army experiment with integration, perhaps proving 

that it would not work on a large scale, certainly buying time for Circular 124 

and frustrating the rising demand for change. He had expressed willingness to 

experiment with an integrated Army unit when Lester Granger made the suggestion through Forrestal in February 1948, but nothing came of it. 

43 In 

September he returned to the idea, asking the Army staff to plan for the formation of an integrated unit about the size of a regimental combat team, along 

with an engineer battalion and the station complement of a post large enough 

to accommodate these troops. Black enlisted men were to form 10 percent of the 

troop basis and be used in all types of positions. Black officers, used in the same 

ratio as black officers in the whole Army, were to command mixed troops. 

General Bradley reported the staff had studied the idea and concluded that such 

units "did not prove anything on the subject." Royall, however, dismissed the 

staff's objection and reiterated his ord~r to plan an experiment at a large installation and in a permanent unit. 44 

Despite the staff's obvious reluctance , Maj. Gen. Harold R. Bull, the new 

Director of Organization and Training, made an intensive study of the alternatives. He produced a plan that was in turn further refined by a group of senior 

officers including the Deputy Chief of Staff for Administration and the Chief of 

41

Mcmo, SccDef for SA ct al., 12 Oct 48, with attached Summary of Supplement, copy in CMH. 42DF, Dir, P&A, tO CofS, 24 Jan 49, sub: Experimental Unit, GSPGA 291.2 (24 Jan 49). 4

3Mcmo, SecDcf for President, 29 Feb 48, Secretary's File (PSF), Truman Library. 44Memo, CofS for Dir, O&T, II Oct 48, CSUSA 29L.2 Negroes (II Oct 48). 
SERVICE INTERESTS VERSUS PRESIDENTIAL INTENT 327 

SPRING FORMAL DANCE, FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, MARYLAND. 1952 

Information. 4, These officers decided that "if the Secretary of the Army so 

orders,'' the Army could activate an experimental unit in the 3d Infantry Division at Camp Campbell, Kentucky. The troops, 10 percent of them black, 

would be drawn from all parts of the country and include ten black officers, 

none above the rank of major. The unit would be carefully monitored by the 

Army staff, and its commander would repon on problems encountered after a 

year's trial. 

It was obvious that Forrestal wanted to avoid publicizing the project. He had 

his assistants, Marx Leva and John Ohly, discuss the proposal with the Secretary 

of the Army to impress on him the need for secrecy until all arrangements were 

completed. More important, he hoped to turn Royall's experiment back on the 

Army itself, using it to gain a foothold for integration in the largest service. Leva 

and Ohly suggested to Royall that instead of activating a special unit he select a 

Regular Army regiment- Leva recommended one from the 82d Airborne Division to which a number of black combat units were already attached-as the 

nucleus of the experiment. With an eye to the forthcoming White House investigation, Leva added that, while the details would be left to the Army, integration of the unit, to be put into effect "as soon as possible," should be 

total. 46 

4)Lt Col D. M. Odcn. Asst Sccy, CS, Memo for Red, 4 Nov 48, sub: Organization of an Expcrimcmal 

Unit, CSUSA 291.2 (Negroes) (II Oct48). 46Memo, Marx Leva for SA, 22 Nov 48: see also idem for Ohly, 16 Nov 48: both in CD 30-1-2. SccDd 

files. 
328 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

The plan for a large-scale integrated unit progressed little beyond this point, 

but it was significant if only because it marked the first time since the Revolution that the Army had seriously considered using a large number of black 

soldiers in a totally integrated unit. The situation was not without its note of 

irony, for the purpose of the plan was not to abolish the racial discrimination 

that critics were constantly laying at the Army's doorstep. In fact, Army leaders, 

seriously dedicated to the separate but equal principle, were convinced the 

Gillem Board policy had already eliminated discrimination. Nor was the plan 

designed to carry out the President's order or prompted by the Secretary of 

Defense. Rather, it was pushed by Secretary Royall as a means of defending the 

Army against the anticipated demands of the President's committee. 

The plan died because, while the Army staff studied organizations and 

counted bodies, Royall expanded his proposal for an integrated unit to include 

elements of the whole national defense establishment. Several motives have 

been suggested for his move. By ensnaring the Navy and Air Force in the experiment, he might impress on all concerned the problems he considered certain to 

arise if any service attempted the integration of a large number of Negroes. An 

experiment involving the whole department might also divert the White House 

from trying to integrate the Army immediately. Besides, the scheme had an 

escape clause. If the Navy and Air Force refused to cooperate, and Royall 

thought it likely they would, given the shortage of skilled black recruits, the 

Army could then legitimately cancel its offer to experiment with integration and 

let the whole problem dissip:ate in a lengthy interservice argument.47 

Royall formally proposed a defense-wide experiment in integration to Forreseal on 2 December. He w:as not oblivious to the impression his vacillation on 

the subject had produced and went to some lengths to explain why he had opposed such experiments in the past. Although he had been thinking about such 

an experiment for some time, he told Forrestal, he had publicly rejected the idea 

at the National Defense Conference and during the Senate hearings on the draft 

law because of the tense international situation and the small size of the Army at 

that time. His interest in the experiment revived as the size of the Army increased and similar suggestions were made by both black leaders and southern 

politicians, but again he had hesitated, this time because of the national elections. He was now prepared to go ahead, but only if similar action were taken by 

the other services. 

The experimental units, he advised Forrestal, should contain both combat 

and service elements of considerable size, and he went on to specify their composition in some detail. The Navy and Marine Corps should include at least one 

shore station ''where the social problems for individuals and their families will 

approximate those confronting the Army." To insure the experiment's 

usefulness, he wanted Negroes employed in all positions, including supervisory 

ones, for which they qualified, and he urged that attention be paid to "the 

problem of social relations in off-duty hours." He was candid about the plan's 

weaknesses. The right to transfer out of the experimental unit might confine the 

471nterv, author with James C. Evans, 1 Jul 70; Ln. E. W. Kenworthy, Exec Sccy. Presidential Committee, 

10 Lee Nichols, 28 }ul 53; both in CMH files. 
SERVICE INTERESTS VERSUS PRESIDENTIAL INTENT 329 

experiment to white and black troops who wanted it to succeed; hence any conclusions drawn might be challenged as invalid since men could not be given the 

right to exercise similar options in time of war. Therefore, if the experiment succeeded, it would have to be followed by another in which no voluntary options 

were granted. The experiment might also bring pressure from groups outside 

the Army, and if it failed "for any reason" the armed services would be accused 

of sabotage, no matter how sincere their effort. Curiously, he admitted that the 

plan was not favored by his military advisers. The Army staff, he noted in what 

must have surprised anyone familiar with the staff's consistent defense of 

segregation, thought the best way to eliminate segregation was to reduce 

gradually the size of segregated units and extend integration in schools, 

hospitals, and special units. Nevertheless, Royall recommended that the National Military Establishment as a whole, not the Army separately, go forward 

with the experiment and that it start early in 1949.48 

The other services had no intention of going forward with such an experiment. The Air Force objected, as Secretary Symington explained, because the 

experiment would be inconclusive; too many artificial features were involved, 

especially having units composed of volunteers. Arbitrary quotas violated the 

principle of equal opportunity, he charged, and the experiment would be unfair 

to Negroes because the proportion of Negroes able to compete with whites was 

less than 1 to 10. Symington also warned against the public relations aspect of 

the scheme, which was of "minimal military significance but of major 

significance in the current public controversy on purely racial issues." The Air 

Force could conduct the experiment without difficulty, he conceded, for there 

were enough trained black technicians to man 10 percent of the positions and 

give a creditable performance, but these men were representative neither of the 

general black population of the Air Force nor of Negroes coming into the service 

during wartime. 

Symington predicted that Negroes would suffer no matter how the experiment came out-success would be attributed to the special conditions involved; 

fa ilure would reflect unjustly on the Negro's capabilities. The Air Force, 

therefore, preferred to refrain from participation in the experiment. Symington 

added that he was considering a study prepared by the Air staff over the past six 

months that would insure equality of treatment and increased opportunities for 

Negroes in the Air Force, and he expected to offer proposals to Forrestal in the 

immediate future. 49 

The Navy also wanted no part of the Royall experiment. Its acting secretary, 

John Nicholas Brown, believed that the gradual indoctrination of the naval 

establishment was producing the desired nondiscriminatory practices "on a 

sound and permanent basis without concomitant problems of morale and 

discipline." To adopt Royall's proposal, on the other hand, would "unnecessarily risk losing all that has been accomplished in the solution of the efficient utilization of Negro personnel to the limit of their ability. "~0 Brown did 48Mc:mo. SA for SccDd. 2 Dec 48. CD 30- 1- 2. SccDef files. 

49Mcmo. SccAF for SecDe£. 22 Dec 48. CD 30-1-2. SccDef files. 

>0Mcmo, Actg SecNav for Sec Del. 28 Dec 48, CD 30-1-2, SccDcf files. 
330 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

.. 

I 

not spell out the risk, but a Navy 

spokesman on Forrestal 's staff was not 

so reticent. "Mutiny cannot be dismissed from consideration," Capt. 

Herbert D. Riley warned, if the Navy 1 were forced to integrate its officers' 

I.D'-,.......__,_ wardrooms, staterooms, and clubs. 

SECRETARY FORRESTAL. accompanied 

by General Huebner, inspects the 

427th Army Band and the 7777th 

EUCOM Honor Guard, Heidelberg, 

Germany, November 1948. 

Such integration ran considerably in advance of the Navy's current and carefully controlled integration of the 

enlisted general service and would, like 

the proposal to place Negroes in command of white officers and men, Captain Riley predicted, have such dire 

results as wholesale resignations and retirements. 51 

The decisive opposition of the Navy 

and Air Force convinced Forrestal that . . . . tnterservtce tntegratton was unworkable. In short, the Navy and Air 

Force had progressed in their own 

estimation to the point where, despite 

shorccomings in their racial policies 

rivaling the Army's, they had little to 

fear from the coming White House investigation. The Army could show no 

similar forward motion. Despite Royall's claim that he and the Army staff 

favored eventual integration of black soldiers through progressive reduction in 

the size of the Army's segregated black units, the facts indicated otherwise. For 

example, while Secretary of Defense Forrestal was touring Germany in late 1948 

he noted in his diary of Lt. Gen. Clarence R. Huebner, now the commander of 

Europe: "Huebner's experience with colored troops is excellent ... . He is 

ready to proceed with the implementation of the President's directive about 

nonsegregation down to the platoon level, and proposes to initiate this in the 

three cavalry regiments and t he AA battalion up north, but docs not want to do 

it if it is premature.'' >2 

Huebner's concern with prematurity was understandable, for the possibility 

of using black soldiers in the constabulary had been a lively topic in the Army 

for some time . Marcus Ray had proposed it in his December 1946 report to the 

Secretary of War, but it was quickly rejected by the Army staff. The staff had approved Huebner's decision in July 1948 to attach a black engineer construction 

battalion and a transportation truck company, a total of 925 men, to the constabulary. The Director of Organization and Training, however, continued to 

HMcmo. Capt H. D. Riley, USN. OSD. for SecDcf. 6 Dec 48, sub: Comment on the Secretary of the 

Army's Proposal Concerning Experimental Non·Segregatcd Units in the Armed Forces. CO 30-1-2, SccOcf 

files. 

HMillis. ForreJtal DiarieJ, p. )28. 
SERVICE INTERESTS VERSUS PRESIDENTIAL INTENT 331 

make a careful distinction between attached units and "organic assignment," 

adding that ''the Department of the Army does not favor the organic assignment of Negro units to the Constabulary at this time. '' 53 ,, 

But by November 1948 Huebner wished to go considerably further. As he 

later put it, he had no need for a black infantry regiment, but since the constabulary, composed for the most part of cavalry units, lacked foot soldiers, he 

wanted to integrate a black infantry battalion, in platoon-size units, in each 

cavalry regiment. 54 The staff turned down his request. Arguing that the inclusion of organic black units in the constabulary ''might be detrimental to the 

proper execution of its mission," and quoting the provision of Circular 124 

limiting integration to the company level, the staff's organization expertS concluded that the use of black units in the European theater below company size 

"would undoubtedly prove embarrassing to the Department of the Army . .. 

in the Zone of the Interior in view of the announced Department of the Army 

policy." General Bull, Director of Organization and Training, informed 

Huebner he might use black units in composite groupings only at the company 

level, including his constabulary forces, "if such is desired by you," but it was 

''not .presently contemplated that integration of Negro units on the platoon 

level will' be approved as Department of the Army policy. " 55 Huebner later 

recalled that the constabulary was his outfit, to be run his way, and "Bradley 

and Collins always let me do what I had to. " 56 Still, when black infantrymen 

joined the constabulary in late 1948, they came in three battalion-size units "attached" for training and tactical control. 57 

The Truman order had no immediate effect on the Army's racial policy. The 

concession to state governors regarding integration of their National Guard 

units was beside the point, and Royall's limited offer to set up an experimental 

integrated unit in the Regular Army was more image than substance. Accurately 

summarizing the situation in March 1949, The Adjutant General informed 

Army commanders that although it was ''strategically unwise'' to republish War 

Department Circular 124 while the President's committee was meeting, the 

policies contained in that document, which was about to expire, would continue 

in effect until further notice. 58 

The Navy: Business as Usual 

The Navy Department also saw no reason to alter its postwar racial policy 

because of the Truman order. As Acting Secretary of Navy Brown explained to 

HDF, Die, O&T. to DCofS, 14 Jul 48, sub: Report of Visit by Negro Publishers and Editors ro the European Theater, CSGOT 291.2 (14 May 48); Memo for Red, attached tO Memo, Die, P&A. for DCofS, 21 Jul48, 

same sub, CSGPA 291.2 (14 May 48). See also Geis Monograph, pp. 88-89. 

5

4

Jmerv, author with Huebner. 55Ltr, Dir, O&T, to CG, EUCOM. 13 Dec 48, sub: Integration of Negro Units on the Platoon Level 

Within the Constabulary EUCOM, CSGOT 291.21 (24 Nov 48); DF. Dir, O&T, to CofS, 9 Dec 48. same sub, 

CSUSA 291.2 (24 Nov 48). 

56Jnterv, author with Huebner. 

57Geis Monograph, p. 90. For the reaction of a constabulary brigade commander ro the attachment of 

black infantrymen, sec Bruce C. Clarke, "Early Integration," Armor (Nov-Dec 1978):29. 58Ltr, TAG to Distribution, 23 Mar49. sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower. AGAO 291.2. 
332 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES , 1940-1965 

the Secretary of Defense in December 1948, whites in his service had come to accept the fact that blacks must take their rightful place in the Navy and Marine 

Corps. This acceptance, in turn, had led to "very satisfactory pFogress" in the 

integration of the department's black personnel without producing problems of 

morale and discipline or a lowering of esprit de corps. 5

9 

Brown had ample statistics at hand to demonstrate that at least in the Navy 

this nondiscrimination policy was progressive. Whereas at the end of the World 

War II demobilization only 6 percent of the Navy'·s Negroes served in the 

general service, some two years later 38 percent were so assigned. These men and 

women generally worked and lived under total integration, and the men served 

on many of the Navy's combat ships. The Bureau of Naval Personnel predicted 

in early 1949 that before the end of the year at least half of all black sailors 

would be assigned to the general service. 60 In contrast to the Army's policy of 

separate but equal service for its black troops, the Navy's postwar racial policy 

was technically correct and essentially in compliance with the President's order. 

Yet progress was very limited and in fact in the two years under its postwar nondiscrimination policy, the Navy's performance was only marginally different 

from that of the other services. The number of Negroes in the Navy in 

December 1948, the same month Brown was extolling its nondiscrimination 

policy, totaled some 17,000 men, 4. 5 percent of its strength and about half the 

Army's proportion. This percentage had remained fairly constant since World 

War II and masked a dramatic drop in the number of black men in uniform as 

the Navy demobilized. Thus while the percentage of the Navy's black sailors 

assigned to the integrated general service rose from 6 to 38, the number of 

Negroes in the general service dropped from 9.900 in 1946 to some 6,000 in 

1948. Looked at another way, the 38 percent figure of blacks in the general service meant that 62 percent of all Negroes in the Navy, 10,871 men in December 

1948, still served in the separate Steward's Branch.61 In contrast to the Army 

and Air Force, the Navy's Negroes were, with only the rarest exception, enlisted 

men. The number of black officers in December 1948 was four; the WAVES 

Mcmo, Actg SccNa~ for SccDef et al. , 28 Dec 48, sub: The Secretary of the Army's Confidential 

Memorandum of 2 December ... . copy in SccAF files. 60Tcstimony of Stickney Before the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in 

the Armed Services, 2~ Apr 49. pp. 19- 20. Sec also. Memo. Actg SecNav for SecDcf et al. , 28 Dec 48, sub: 

The Secretary of the Army's Confidential Memorandum of 2 December .. .. 61Lt Cmdr G. E. Minor. BuPers, Memo for File. 10 Mar 49. sub: Information for Lt. Nelson· Press Section, 

Pees 251, BuPcrsRecs. Separate is probably a better term for describing the Steward's Branch, since the branch 

was never completely segregated. On 31 March 1949, for example. the racial and ethnic breakdown of the 

branch was as follows: 

Negro .. . ... . .. . . . .. . .. . ... . • 

Filipino . .. . . .•.. . . . ..... . ... . 

Chamorro .... . . . .. . .. . ..•... . 

Chinese .... .. . . . . . . . ..... . . . 

Samoan ..... •. .. . . . . .. . . . . . . 

Korean .. .. . . . . .. . .. . . .. . . .. . 

10,499 

4, 707 

641 

~5 

25 

9 

Hawaiian .. . .... .• . .. . .. .. . .. 

Puerto Rican ..... .. .... . •. .. . . 

Japanese .................... . 

American Indian ...... .. . •... . 

Caucasian .. .. ..... . .. . .. . .. . . 

Total . .. .. . . .. . . ..... . .. . 

5 

4 

1 

15.945 

Source: Figures taken from BuPers. ''Steward Group Personnel by Race." 24 May 49, Pees 25. BuPersRecs. 
SERVICE INTERESTS VERSUS PRESIDENTIAL INTENT 333 

could count only six black women in its 2,130 total. Clearly, the oft repeated rationale for these statistics-Negroes favored the Army because they were not a 

seafaring people-could not explain them away. 62 

A substantial increase in the number of Negroes would have absolved the 

Navy from some of the stigma of racial discrimination it endured in the late 

1940's. Since the size of the Steward's Branch was limited by regulation and 

budget, any increase in black enlistment would immediately raise the number 

of Negroes serving in the integrated general service. Increased enlistments 

would also widen the choice of assignments, creating new opportunities for promotion to higher grades. But even this obvious and basic response to the 

Truman order was not forthcoming. The Navy continued to exclude many 

potential black volunteers on the grounds that it needed to maintain stricter 

mental and physical standards to secure men capable of running a modern, 

technically complex Navy. True, regular and reserve officers were periodically 

sent to black colleges to discuss naval careers with the students, but as one official, speaking of the reserves, confessed to the Fahy Committee in April 1949, 

"We aren't doing anything special to procure Negro officers or Negro enlisted 

men.'' 63 

At best, recruiting more Negroes for the general service would only partly 

fulfill the Navy's obligation to conform to the Truman order. It would still leave 

untouched the Steward's Branch, which for years had kept alive the impression 

that the Navy valued minority groups only as servants. The Bureau of Naval Personnel had closed the branch to first enlistments and provided for the transfer of 

eligible stewards to the general service, but black stewards were only transferring 

at the rate of seven men per month, hardly enough to alter the racial composition of the branch. In the six .months following September 1948 the branch's 

black strength dropped by 910 men, but because the total strength of the 

branch also dropped, the percentage of black stewards remained constant.64 

What was needed was an infusion of whites, but this remedy, like an increase of 

black officers, would require a fundamental change in the racial attitudes of 

Navy leaders. No such change was evident in the Navy's postwar racial policy. 

While solemnly proclaiming its belief in the principle of nondiscrimination, the 

service had continued to sanction practices that limited integration and equal 

opportunity to a degree consistent with its racial tradition and manpower needs. 

Curiously, the Navy managed to avoid strong criticism from the civil rights 

groups throughout the postwar period, and the Truman order notwithstanding, 

62Th is dubious assertion on the seagoing interests of races had been most recently expressed by the Chief of 

Naval Personnel before a meeting of the President's Com mince on Equality of Treatment and Opponuniry in 

the: Armed Services; sec Testimony of Fechtcler, 13 Jan 49. pp. 107-08. 63Testimony of Capt J. H. Schultz. Asst Chief of Naval Personnel for Naval Reserve, Before President's 

Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. 26 Apr 49, afternoon session, 

p. 19. 

64Memo, Head, Pers Accounting and Statistical Control Sec, BuPers, for Die, Fiscal Div (Pers 83). 14 Dec 

48. sub: Statislics on Steward Group Personnel in Navy: Memo, \VI. C. Kincaid, BuPcrs Fiscal Div. for Cmdr 

Smith, SuPers, 6 May 48. sub: Negroes. USN- Transferring From Commissary or Steward Branch to General 

Service: DuPers, "Steward Group Personnel by Race," 24 May 49. All in Pcrs 25, BuPcrsRccs. 
334 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

it was therefore in a strong position to resist precipitous change in its racial practices. 

Adjustments in the Marine Corps 

Unlike the Navy, the Marine Corps did not enjoy so secure a position. Its 

policy of keeping black marines strictly segregated was becoming untenable in 

the face of its shrinking size, and by the time President Truman issued his order 

the corps was finding it necessary to make some adjustments. Basic training, for 

example, was integrated in the cause of military efficiency. With fewer than 

twenty new black recruits a month, the corps was finding it too expensive and 

inefficient to maintain a separate recruit training program, and on 1 July 1949 

the commandant, General Clifton B. Cates, ordered that Negroes be trained 

with the rest of the recruits at Parris Island, but in separate platoons. ~ Even this 

system proved too costly, however, because black recruits were forced to wait for 

training until their numbers built up to platoon size. Given the length of the 

training cycle, the camp commander had to reserve three training platoons for 

the few black recruits. Maj. Gen. Alfred H. Noble, the commander, repeatedly 

complained of the waste of instructors, time, and facilities and the "otherwise 

generally undesirable'' features of separate black training platoons. He pointed 

out to the commandant that black students had been successfully assimilated into personnel administration and drill instructor schools without friction or incident, and reservist training and local intramural sports had already peacefully 

introduced integration to the base. Noble wanted to integrate black recruits as 

they arrived, absorbing them in the white training platoons then being processed. He also wanted to use selected black noncommissioned officers as instructors. 

66 

The commandant approved the integration of recruit training on 22 

September, and Noble quietly began assigning recruits without regard to 

color. 67 Integration of black noncommissioned officer platoon leaders followed, 

along with integration of the noncommissioned officers' club and other 

facilities. Noble later recalled the circumstance of the first significant instance of 

integration in the history of the Marine Corps: 

This innovation not only produced no unfavorable reaction among the Marines, but also 

it had no unfavorable reaction among the civilian citizens of South Carolina in the 

vicinity. Of course I consulted the civilian leaders first and told them what I was going to 

do and got their advice and promises of help to try to stop any adverse criticisms of it. It 

seemed like integration was due to take place sooner or later anyway in this country, certainly in the Armed Forces, and 1 thought that it should take place in the Armed Forces 

first. <>s 

6)Memo, CMC for CG. MB, Cp Lejeune, N.C .. 23 Aug 48, sub: Recruit Training Load at Momford Poim 

Camp. MC 1035238; idem for CG, MCRD. 26 May 49. MC 1091093; Memo, Dir of Recruiting for Off in 

Charge. Recruit Divs, 13 Jun 49, sub: Enlistment of Negro Personnel. All in Hist Div, HQMC. Unless otherwise noted all documcms cited in this secrion arc located in this office. 66Memo, CG, MCRD. Parris Island. for CMC. 15 Sep 49. sub: Negro Recruits. ser. 08355 . 67Th is Jjmited integration program was announced by the Secretary of the Navy on 22 December 1949; see 

Memo. 'Under SccNav for Chmn. PPB, 22 Dec 49, PPB files. 

68USMC Oral Hiswry lmcrview with Noble. 20-23 May 68. 
SERVICE INTERESTS VERSUS PRESIDENTIAL INTENT 

Since manpower restrictions also 

made the organization of administratively separate black units hard 

to justify, the postwar reduction in the 

number of black marines eventually led 

to the formation of a number of racially 

composite units. Where once separate 

black companies were the norm, by 

1949 the corps had organized most of 

its black marines into separate platoons 

and assigned them as parts of larger 

white units. In March 1949 Secretary of 

the Navy Sullivan reported that with 

the minor exception of several black 

depot companies, the largest black 

units in the Marine Corps were platoons 

of forty-three men, "and they are integ~ate?.69 with other platoons of 

whttes. 

The cutback in the size and kinds of GENERAL CATES 

335 

black units and the integration of recruit training removed the need for the 

separate camp at Mondord Point, home base for black marines since the beginning of World War II. The camp's last two organizations, a provisional company 

and a headquarters company, were inactivated on 31 July and 9 September, 

respectively, thus ending an era in the history of Negroes in the Marine Corps. 70 

Composite grouping of small black units usually provided for separate 

assignment and segregated facilities. As late as February 1949, the commandant 

made clear he had no intention of allowing the corps to drift into a de facto integration policy. When, for example, it carrie to his attention that some commanders were restricting appointment of qualified black marines to specialist 

schools on the grounds that th eir commands lacked billets for black specialists, 

the commandant reiterated the principle that assignment to specialty training 

was to be made without regard to race. At the same rime he emphasized that 

this policy was not co be construed as an endorsement of the use of black 

specialists in white units. General Cates specifically stipulated that where no 

billets in their specialty or a rdaced one were available for black specialists in 

black units, his headquarters was to be informep. The implication of chis order 

was obvious to the Division of Plans and Policies. ''This is an important one,'' a 

division official commented. ''it involves finding billets for Negro specialists 

even if we have ro create a unit to do it.' '

71 It was also obvious that when the 

69Tcstimony of the Sccrcr.ary of the Navy Before President's Committee on Equality of Trear.ment and Op· 

ponunity in the Armed Services, 28 Mar 49. afternoon session, p. I 5. 700n the closing of Montford Point, sec lnterv. Blumcnson with Sgt Max Rousseau, Admin Chief, G-1 

Div. USMC (former member of the Montford Point Camp headquarters), 21 Feb 66, CMH files. 

71 Memo. CMC for CG, FMF, Pacific, II Feb 49. with attached Handwrincn Note, Div of Plans and 

Policies to A sst CMC, I I Feb 49. 
336 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Under Secretary of the Navy, Dan A. Kimball, reported to the Personnel Policy 

Board in May that "Negro Marines, including Stewards, are assigned to other 

[white] Marine Corps units in accord with their specialty," he was speaking of 

rare exceptions to the general rule. 72 

Cates seemed determined to ignore the military inefficiency attendant on 

such elaborate attempts to insure the continued isolation of black marines. The 

defense establishment, he was convinced, "could not be an agency for experimentation in civil liberty without detriment to its ability to maintain the efficiency and the high state of readiness so essential to national defense.'' Having 

thus tied military efficiency to segregation, Cates explained to the Assistant 

Secretary of the Navy for Air that the efficiency of a unit was a command responsibility, and so long as that responsibility rested with the commander, he must 

be authorized to make such assignments as he deemed necessary. It followed, 

then, that segregation was a national, not a military, problem, and any attempt 

to change national policy through the armed forces was, in the commandant's 

words, "a dangerous path to pursue inasmuch as it affects the ability of the National Military Establishment to fullfill its mission." Integration must first be 

accepted as a national custom, he concluded, "before it could be adopted in the 

armed forces. " 73 Nor was General Cates ambiguous on Marine Corps policy 

when it was questioned by civil rights leaders. Individual marines, he told the 

commander of a black depot company in a case involving opportunities 

available to reenlisting black marines, would be employed in the future as in the 

past ''to serve the best interests of the Corps under existing circumstances.' '

74 

Actually, Cates was only forcibly expressing a cardinal tenet common to all 

the military services: the civil rights of the individual must be subordinated to 

the mission of the service. What might appear to a civil rights activist to be a 

callous and prejudiced response to a legitimate social complaint was more likely 

an expression of the commandant's overriding concern for his military mission. 

Still it was difficult to explain such elaborate precautions in a corps where 

Negroes numbered less than 2 percent of the total strength. 75 How could the integration of 1, 500 men throughout the worldwide units of the corps disrupt its 

72Mcmo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 2 May 49. PPB 291.2. 

73Mcmo, CMC for Asst SecNav for Air, 17 Mar 49, sub: Proposed Directive for the Armed Forces for the 

Period I July 1949 to 1 July 1950, A0-1 , MC files. 741dem for CO, Second Depot Co, Service Cmd, FMF, 2 May 49, sub: Employment of Negroes in the 

Marine Corps. MC!008783. MC files. 

750n 30 June 1949 the Marine Corps had I, 504 Negroes on active duty, 1.9 percent of the total if the oneyear enlistees were indudcd or 2.08 percent if the one-year enlistees were excluded. Sec Office of the Civilian 

Aide. OSD, Negro Strength Summary, 18 Jul 49, copy in CMH. For purposes of comparison, the following 

gives the percentage of Negroes in the Navy and the Marine Corps for earlier years. 

Date Navy 

Dec 43 . . .. ........ .... . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. ... . . . 5.0 

Dec44. ... . ... . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. 5.5 

Dec 45 ...... . .. . . . .... . .... . .. . . . .. .... . . . .. . 5.9 

Dec46. . .. .... . . . . . ... . .... . .. . . . . ... . .. . . . . . 4.7 

Dec 47. . . .. . . .... . . . .. . . . . . . . ... . .. . ...... . .. 5.4 

Feb 48 .. . . . ... . . ... . .. .. . . ..... . .. .. .. . . .... . 5.05 

Marine Corps 

3.2 

3.6 

5.4 

2.3 

1.6 

1.9 

Source: Officer in Charge, Pers Acctg & Stat Control. Memo for File, 23 Apr 48, Pers 215 BuPersRccs. 
SERVICE INTERESTS VERSUS PRESIDENTIAL INTENT 

1ST MARINE DIVISION DRILL TEAM ON EXHIBITION at San Diego's Balboa Stadium, 

1949. 

337 

mission, civil rights spokesmen might well ask, especially given the evidence to 

the contrary in the Navy? In view of the President's order, how could the corps 

justify the proliferation of very small black units that severely restricted the 

spread of occupational opportunities for Negroes? 

The corps ignored these questions during the summer of 1949, concentrating instead on the problem of finding racially separate assignments for its 

1,000 Negroes in the general service. As the number of marines continued to 

drop, the Division of Plans and Policies was forced to justify the existence of 

black units by a series of reorganizations and redistributions. When, for example, the reorganization of the Fleet Marine Force caused the inactivation of two 

black depot units, the division designated a 108-man truck company as a black 

unit to take up the slack. At the same time the division found yet another 

''suitable'' occupation for black marines by laying down a policy that all security 

detachments at inactive naval facilities were to be manned by Negroes. It also 

decided to assign small black units to the service battalions of the Marine divisions, maintaining that such assignments would not run counter to the commandant's policy of restricting Negroes to noncombat organizations. 76 

The Marine Corps, in short, had no intention of relaxing its policy of 

separating the races. The timing of the integration of recruit training and the 

breakup of some large black units perhaps suggested a general concession to the 

Truman order, but these administrative changes were actually made in response 

to the manpower restrictions of the Truman defense budget. In fact, the position of black marines in smahl black units became even more isolated in the 

76Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies. for CMC, 28 Jul 49. sub: Re-assignment of Negro Marines to Existing units (DP&P Study 88- 49), MC files. 
338 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

months following the Truman order as the Division of Plans and Policies began 

devising racially separate assignments. Like the stewards before them, the 

security guards at closed naval installations and ammunition depots found 

themselves in assignments increasingly viewed as "colored" jobs. That the 

number of Negroes in the Marine Corps was so small aided and abetted these arrangements, which promised to continue despite the presidential order until 

some dramatic need for change arose. 

The Atr Force Plans for Limited Integration 

Of ~11 the services, the Air Force was in the best position to respond 

promptly to President Truman's call for equal treatment and opportunity. For 

some time a group of Air staff officers had been engaged in devising a new approach to the use of black manpower. Indeed their study, much of which 

antedated the Truman order, represented the solution of the Air Force's manpower experts to a pressing problem in military efficiency. More important than 

the executive order or demands of civil rights advocates, the criticism of segregation by these experts in uniform led the Air Force to accept the need for limited 

integration. 

But there was to be no easy road to integration for the service. Considerable 

resistance was yet to be overcome, both in the Air staff and among senior commanders. As Secretary Zuckert later put it, while there was sentiment for integration among a few of the highest officers, "you didn't have to scratch far to 

run into opposition." 77 The Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, General Edwards, reported to Secretary Symington that he had found solid opposition to 

any proposed policy of integration in the service. 78 Normally such resistance 

would have killed the study group's proposals. In the Army, for example, opposition supported by Secretary Royall had blocked change. In the Air Force, 

the opposition received no su<:h support. Indeed, Secretary Symington proved to 

be the catalyst that the Army had lacked. He was the Air Force's margin of difference, transforming the study group's proposal from a staffing paper into a 

program for substantial change in racial policy. 

In Symington the Air Force had a secretary who was not only a toughminded businessman deman ding efficiency but a progressive politician with a 

humanitarian interest in providing equal opportunity for Negroes. "With 

Symington," Eugene Zuckert has pointed out, "it was principle first, efficiency 

second.' '

79 Symington himself later explained the source of his humanitarian interest. ''What determined me many years ago was a quotation from Bernard 

Shaw in Myrdal's book, American Dtlemma, which went something like 

this- 'First the American white man makes the negro clean his shoes, then 

criticizes him for being a bootblack.' All Americans should have their chance. 

And both my grandfathers were in the Confederate Army. " 80 Symington had 

77Notcs on Tclccon, author with Zucken, 28 Apr 70, CMH fi les. 78Memo, DCofSIP&A, USAF, for Sec A F. 29 Apr 48, sub: Conference With Group of Prominent Negroes, 

Nc&Jo Affairs, 1948, SecAF files. 

9Telccon, author with Zuckcrc. 80Ltr, Symington to David K. Niles, 28 Jan 50, SccAF files. 
SERVICE INTERESTS VERSUS PRESIDENTIAL INTENT 339 

successfully combined efficiency and humanitarianism before. As president of 

the Emerson Electric Manufacturing Company of St. Louis, he had racially integrated a major industry carrying out vital war work in a border state, thereby 

increasing productivity. When he became secretary, Symington was immediately involved in the Air Force's race problems; he wanted to know, for instance, why only nine black applicants had passed the qualifying examination 

for the current cadet program . 

81 When President Truman issued his executive 

order, Symington was ready to move. In his own words, "when Mr. Truman as 

Commander-in-Chief issued an order to integrate the Air Force, I asked him if 

he was serious. He said he was. Accordingly we did just that. I turned the actual 

operations of the job over to my Assistant Secretary Eugene Zuckerc. . . . It all 

worked out roucinely. 82 

To call "routine" the fundamental change that took place in Air Force manpower practices stretches the definition of the word . The integration program required many months of intensive study and planning, and many more months 

to carry out. Yet if integration under Symington was slow, it was also inevitable. 

Zuckert reported that Symington gave him about eight reasons for integration, 

the last " because I said do it. " 83 Symington's tough attitude, along with the 

presidential order, considerably eased the burden of those in the Air Force who 

were expected to abandon a tradition inherited from their Army days. The 

secretary's diplomatic skill also softened opposition in other quarters. Symington, a master at congressional relations, smoothed the way on Capitol Hill by 

successfully reassuring some southern leaders, in particular Congressman Carl 

Vinson of Georgia , that integration had to come, but that it would come quietly 

and in a way lease calculated to provoke its congressional opponents. 84 

Symington assigned general responsibility for equal opportunity matters to 

his assistant secretary for management, Eugene Zuckerr, but the task of formulating the specific plan fell to General Edwards. To avoid conflict with some 

of his colleagues, Edwards resorted to the unorthodox means of ignoring the 

usual staff coordination. He sent his proposals directly to the Chief of Staff and 

then on to the secretary for approval without reference to other staff agencies, 

one of which, the Office of the Vice Chief of Staff, General Muir S. Fairchild, 

was the focal point of staff opposi cion. ~ 

On the basis of evidence submitted by his long-standing study group, 

General Edwards concluded that current Air Force policy for the use of black 

manpower was "wasteful, deleterious to military effectiveness and lacking in 

wartime application.'' The policy of the Navy was superior, he told the Chief of 

Staff and the secretary, with respect to military effectiveness, economy, and 

morale, especially when the needs of full mobilization were considered. The Air 

81Mcmo. SecAF for Zuckert, 5 Jan 48; Penciled Note, signed "Stu." attached to Memo. ASccAF for 

Symington. 20 Jan 48. All in SccAF files. 82Ltr, W. Stuart Symington to author, 6 May 70, CMH files. 8l-fclccon, author with Zucken. 

841bid .; sec also USAF Oral Hist Intcrv with Zuckcrt. 

S)for discussion of the close·hcld nature of the USAF integration plan, sec USAF Oral Hist lntcrvs with 

Davis and Marr; sec also Ltrs. Marr 10 author, 19 Jun and 28 Jul 70. 
340 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Force would profit by adopting a policy 

similar to that of the Navy, and he proposed a program, to be "vigorously implemented and monitored,'' that 

would inactivate the all-black fighter 

wing and transfer qualified black servicemen from that wing as well as from 

all the major commands to white units. 

One exception would be that those 

black specialists, whose work was essential to the continued operation of their 

units, would stay in their black units. 

Some black units would be retained to 

provide for individuals ineligible for 

transfer to white units or for discharge. 

The new program would abolish the 

10 percent quota and develop recruiting 

methods to enable the Air Force to 

secure only the "best qualified" 

enlistees of both races. Men chronically SECRETARY SYMINGTON 

ineligible for advancement, both black and white, would be eliminated. If too 

many Negroes enlisted despite these measures, Edwards explained that an "administratively determined ceiling of Negro intake" could be established, but 

the Air Force had no intention of establishing a minimum for black enlistees. As 

the Director of Personnel Planning put it, a racial floor was just as much a quota 

as a racial ceiling and had the same effect of denying opportunity ro some while 

providing special consideration for others. 86 

The manpower experts had decided that the social complications of such a 

policy would be negligible-" more imaginary than real. " Edwards referred to 

the Navy's experience with limited integration, which, he judged, had relieved 

rather than multiplied social tensions between the races. Nevertheless he and his 

staff proposed ' 'as a conservative but progressive step'' toward the integration of 

living quarters that the Air Force arrange for separate sleeping quarters for 

blacks and whites. The so-called "barracks problem" was the principal point of 

discussion within the Air staff, Edwards admitted, and "perhaps the most 

critical point of the endre policy.'' He predicted that the trend toward more 

privacy in barracks, especially the separate cubicles provided in construction 

plans for new barracks, would help solve whatever problems might ariseY 

While the Chief of Staff, General Vandenberg, initialed the program 

without comment, Assistant Secretary Zuckert was enthusiastic . As Zuckert explained to Symington, the program was predicated on free competition for all 

Air Force jobs, and he believ·ed that it would also eliminate social discrimination 

86Mcmo, Dir. Personnel Planning USAF. for the Fahy Cmtc, 15 Jan 49. sub: Air Force Policies Regarding 

Negro Personnel, SccAF files. 87Summary Sheet DCS/P, USAF, f-or CS. USAF, and Sec A F. 29 Dec 48. sub: Air force Policies on Negro 

Personnel, SccAF files. 
SERVICE INTERESTS VERSUS PRESIDENTIAL INTENT 341 

by giving black officers· and men all the privileges of Air Force social facilities. 

Although he admitted that in the matter of living arrangements the plan ''only 

goes part way," he too was confident that time and changes in barracks construction would eliminate any problems. 88 

Symington was already familiar with most of Edwards's conclusions, for a 

summary had been sent him by the Assistant Vice Chief of Staff on i2 

December ''for background.' '

89 When he received Zuckert' s comments he acted 

quickly. The next day he let tlhe Secretary of Defense know what the Air Force 

was doing. "We propose," he told Forrestal, "to adopt a policy of integration.'' But he qualified that statement along the lines suggested by the Air 

staff: ''Although there will still be units manned entirely by Negroes, all 

Negroes will not necessarily be assigned to these units. Qualified Negro personnel will be assigned to any duties in any Air Force activity strictly on the basis of 

the qualifications of the individual and the needs of the Air Force. " 90 Symington tied the new program to military efficiency, explaining to Forrestal that 

efficient use of black servicemen was one of the essentials of economic and effective air power. In this vein he summarized the program and listed what he considered its advantages for the Air Force. 

The proposal forwarded to the Secretary of Defense in January 1949 committed the Air Force to a limited integration policy frankly imitative of the Navy's. 

A major improvement over the Air Force's current practices, the plan still fell 

considerably short of the long-range goals enunciated in the Gillem Board 

Report, to say nothing of the implications of the President's equal opportunity 

order. Although it is impossible to say exactly why Symington decided to settle 

for less than full integration, there are several explanations worth considering. 

In the first place the program sent to Forrestal may well not have reflected 

the exact views of the Air Force secretary, nor conveyed all that his principal 

manpower assistant intended. Actually, the concern expressed by Air Force officials for military efficiency and by civil rights leaders for equal opportunity 

always centered specifically on the problems of the black tactical air unit and 

related specialist billets at Lockbourne Air Force Base. In fact, the need to solve 

the pressing administrative problems of Colonel Davis's command provoked the 

Air staff study that eventually evolved into the integration program. The program itself focused on this command and provided for the integrated assignment of its members throughout the Air Force. Other black enlisted men, certainly those serving as laborers in the F Squadrons, scattered worldwide, did not 

pose a comparable manpower problem. They were ignored on the theory that 

abolition of the quota, along with the application of more stringent recruitment 

procedures, would in time rid the services of its unskilled and unneeded men. 

It can be argued that the purpose of the limited integration proposal was not 

so much to devise a new policy as to minimize the impact of change on congressional opponents. Edwards ce.trtainly hoped that his plan would placate senior 

88Memo. ASecAF for Sy gto ~ Jan 49, SecAF files. 89Memo. Maj Gen William F. McKee for Symington, 22 Dec 48, sub: Mr. Royall's Negro Experiment, 

SecAF files. 

9°Mcmo, SecAF for Forrcstal, 6 Jan 49. Negro Affairs. 1949, SecAF files. 
342 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940- 1965 

commanders and staff officers who opposed integration or feared the social 

upheaval they assumed would follow the abolition of all black 1,mits. This explanation would account for the cautious approach to racial mixing in the proposal, the elaborate administrative safeguards against social confrontation, and 

the promised reduction in the number of black airmen. Some of those pressing 

for the new program certainly considered the retention of segregated units a 

stopgap measure designed to prevent a too precipitous reorganization of the service. As Lt. Col. Jack Marr, a member of Edwards's staff and author of the staff's 

integration study, explained to the Fahy Committee, "we are trying to do our 

best not to tear the Air Force all apart and try to reorganize it overnight.' '

91 Marc 

predicted that as those eligible for reassignment were transferred out of black 

units, the units themselves, bereft of essential personnel, would become inoperative and disappear one by one. 

In the end it must be admitted that race relations possess an inner dynamic, 

and it is impossible to relate the integration of the Air Force to any isolated decision by a secretary or proposal by a group from his military staff. The decision to 

integrate was the result of several disparate forces-the political interests of the 

administration, the manpower needs of the Air Force, the aspirations of its black 

minority, and perhaps more than all the rest, the acceptance by its airmen of a 

different social system. Together, these factors would make successive steps to 

full integration impossible to resist. Integration, then, was an evolutionary process, and Symington's acceptance of a limited integration plan was only one step 

in a continuing process that stretched from the Air staff's study of black manpower in 1948 to the disappearance of the last black unit two years later. 

91Tescimony of Lc Col Jack F. Marr Before President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 13 Jan 49. afternoon session, p. 46. 
CHAPTER 14 

The Fahy Committee Versus 

the Department of Defense 

Given James Forrestal's sympathy for integration, considerable cooperation 

could be expected between members of his department and the Committee on 

Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, better known as 

the Fahy Committee. In the wake of the committee's establishment, Forrestal 

proposed that the service secretaries assign an assistant secretary to coordinate his 

department's dealings with the group and a ranking black officer from each service be assigned to advise the assistant secretaries. 1 His own office promised to 

supply the committee with vital documentation, and his manpower experts offered to testify. The service secretaries agreed to follow suit. 

Willing to cooperate, Forrestal still wanted to chart his own course. Both he 

and his successor, Louis A. Johnson, made it quite clear that as a senior cabinet 

officer the Secretary of Defense was accountable in all matters to the President 

alone. The Fahy Committee might report on the department's racial practices 

and suggest changes, but the development of policy was his prerogative. Both 

men dealt directly with the committee from time to time, but their directives to 

the services on the formulation of race policy were developed independently of 

the White House group. 2 Underscoring this independent attitude, Marx Leva 

reminded the service secretaries that the members of the Personnel Policy Board 

were to work with the representatives of their respective staffs on racial matters. 

They were not expected ''to assist Fahy.' '

3 

At the same time Secretary of Defense Forrestal was aware that the interests 

of a committee enjoying White House support could not be ignored. His attempt to develop a new racial policy was probably in part an effort to forestall 

committee criticism and in part a wish to draw up a policy that would satisfy the 

committee without really doing much to change things. After all, such a departmental attitude toward committees, both congressional and presidential, was 

fairly normal. Faced with the conflicting racial policies of the Air Force and 1

Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 21 Oct 48, copy in Fahy Committee file, CMH [hereafter cited as FC file]. 

The Center of Military History has retained an extensive collection of significant primary materials pertaining 

to the Fahy Committee and its dealings with the Department of Defense. While most of the original 

documents arc in the Charles Fahy Papers and the Papers of the Prcsidcm's Comminec on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services at the Harry S. Truman Library or in t:he National Archives, this 

study will cite t:he CMH collection when possible. 2

Ltrs, James Forrestal to Fahy, 26 Mar 49. and Louis Johnson to Fahy, 18 Apr 49; both in FC file. See also 

Ltr, Thomas R. Reid toR. M. Dalfiume, 12 Feb 65, copy in CMH . 3Min, Cmte of Four Secretaries Mtg, 26 Oct 48, Office of OSD Historian. The Comminee of the Four 

Secretaries was an informal body composed of the Secretary of Defense or his tepresentative and the secretaries 

of the three armed services. 
344 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES , 1940- 1965 

Army, Forrestal agreed to let the services present their separate programs to the 

Fahy Committee, but he wanted to develop a race policy applicable to all the 

services.

4 Some of his subord inates debated the wisdom of this decision, arguing 

that the President had assigned that task to the Fahy Committee, but they were 

overruled. Forrestal ordered the newly created Personnel Policy Board to undercake, simultaneously with the committee, a study of the department's racial 

policy. The board was to concentrate on "breaking down the problem," as Forreseal put it, into its component parts and crying to arrive quietly at areas of 

agreement on a uniform policy that could be held in readiness until the Fahy 

Committee made its report. ~ 

The Personnel Policy Board , established by Forrestal to help regulate the 

military and civilian policies of his large department, was the logical place to 

prepare a departmental racial policy. 6 But could a group basically interservice in 

nature be expected to develop a forceful, independent racial policy for all the 

services along the lines Forrestal appeared to be following? It seemed unlikely, 

for at their first meeting the board members agreed that any policy developed 

must be ' 'satisfactory to the three services.' ' 7 

Undeterred by members' calling for more investigation and debate before 

the board prepared a common policy, Chairman Thomas R. Reid and his chief 

of staff, Army Brig. Gen. Charles T. Lanham, acted.8 On 28 February they 

drafted a directive for the Secretary of Defense that would abolish all racial 

quotas and establish uniform standards of induction for service which in times 

of emergency would include provisions for the apportionment of enlistees both 

qualitatively and quantitatively. Moreover, all black enlistees would be given 

the opportunity to serve as individuals in integrated units. The services wou ld be 

completely integrated by 1 July 1950. To ease the change, Reid and Lanham 

would in the interim regulate the number of Negroes in integrated units, allowing not less than four men and not more than 10 percent in a company-size 

unit. Enlisted men could choose to serve under officers of their own race .

9 

Favorably received in the secretary's office, the proposed directive came too 

late for speedy enactment. On 3 March Forrestal resigned , and although Leva 

hoped the directive could be issued before Forrestal's actual departure, " in view 

of his long-standing interest in this field ," Forrestal was obviously reluctant to 

4Min, War Council Mtg. 12 Jan 49. Office of OSD Historian: Memo, Secy of War Council for SA er at .. 13 

Jan 49. sub: Significant Anion of rhe Special Meeting of the War Council on 12 January 1949. OSD 291.2. 

The WM Council. established by Section 210 of the National Security Act of 1947, consisted of the Secretary 

of Defense as chairman with power of decision, the service secretaries, and the military chiefs of rhe Army, 

Navl,, Air Force, and Marine Corps. 

Memo, Thomas R. Reid , Chmn, PPB, for Worthington Thompson. OSD, 15 Feb 49. sub: Meeting of 

Committee of Four, 10 A.M. Tucsday- 15 February, FC file. 6Forrcstal signed an interim directive appointing members of the board on 22 February 1949. Composed 

of a civilian chairman and an under secretary or assistant secretary from each service. the board was to have a 

staff of personnel experts under a director. an officer of flag rank, appointed by the chairman; sec NME Press 

Releases. 28 Dec 48. and I Apr 49. 7Min PPB Mtg, 26 Feb 49. FC file . 8Memo. Col J. F. Cassidy. PPB, for Dir. PPB Staff. 25 Feb 49. sub: Policies of the Three Departments 

With Reference to Negro Personnel. FC file. 

9PPB, Draft (Reid and Lanham). Proposed Directive for the Armed Forces for the Period I July 1949 to 1 

July 1950. 28Feb 49 . FCfile. 
THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 345 

commit his successor to so drastic a course. 10 With a final bow to his belief in service autonomy, Forrestal asked Reid and Lanham to submit their proposal to the 

service secretaries for review. 11 The secretaries approved the idea of a unified 

policy in principle, but each had very definite and individual views on what that 

policy should contain and how it should be carried out. Denied firm direction 

from the ailing Forrestal, Reid and Lanham could do little against service opposition. Their proposal was quietly tabled while the board continued its search 

for an acceptable unified policy. 

Perhaps it was just as well, for the Reid-Lanham draft had serious defects. It 

failed to address the problems of qualitative imbalance in the peacetime services, probably in deference to Forrestal's recent rejection of the Army's call for 

a fair distribution of high-scoring enlistees. While the proposal encouraged 

special training for Negroes, it also limited their assignment to a strict 10 percent quota in any unit. The result would have been an administrative nightmare, 

with trained men in excess of the 10 percent quota assigned to other, 

nonspecialty duties. As one manpower expert later admitted, "you ran the real 

chance of having black engineers and the like pushing wheelbarrows.'' 12 

The service objections to a caretully spelfed out pohcy were in themselves 

quite convincing to Lanham and Reid. Reid agreed with Eugene Zuckert, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, that I I probably the most 1ogical and soundest approach'' was for each service to prepare a policy statement and explain how it 

was being carried out. The board could then prepare a general policy based on 

these statements, and, with the approval of the Secretary of Defense, send it to 

the Fahy Committtee in time for its report to the President. 13 But if Zuckert's 

scheme was logical and sound, it also managed to reduce the secretary's status to 

final endorsement officer. Such a role never appealed to James Forrestal, and 

would be even less acceptable to the politically energetic Louis Johnson, who 

succeeded Forrestal as Secretary of Defense on 28 March 1949. 

Reid appreciated this distinction, and while he was willing to abandon the 

idea of a policy directive spelling out matters of personnel administration, he 

was determined that there be a general policy statement on the subject and that 

it originate not with the services but with the Secretary of Defense, who would 

then review individual service plans for implementing his directive. 14 Reid set 

the board's staff to this task, but it took several draftings, each stronger and 

more specific than the last, before a directive acceptable to Reid and Lanham 

was devised. 15 Approved by the full board on 5 April 1949 and signed by 

Secretary Johnson the next day, the directive reiterated the President's executive 

order, adding that all persons would be considered on the basis of individual 

10Note, Leva thru Ohly to Buck Lanham, attached to Draft of Proposed Directive cited inn. 9. 11Memo, Chmn, PPB, for John Ohly, Assistant to SecDcf, 15 Mar 49; Revised Min, PPB Mtg, 18 Mar 49; 

both in FC file. 12lnterv, author with Roy K. Davenpon, 7 Oct 71, CMH. 

13Memo for Files, Clarence 1-1 . Osthagcn, Assistant to SccAF, 31 Mar 49, sub: Conference Wirh Thomas 

Reid, FCfile. 

14Memo, Thomas Reid for Asst SecNav, I Apr 49, sub: Statement on Equality of Treatment and Opportunit?,: FC file. 1 PPB. Draft Memo, SecDef for Svc Secys (prepared by Col). F. Cassidy for Reid), 31 Mar 49; PPB, Proposed Policy for the National Military Establishment, 4 Apt 49; borh in FC file. 
346 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

merit and ability and must qualify according to the prescribed standards for 

enlistment, promotion, assignment, and school attendance. All persons would 

be accorded equal opportunity for appointment, advancement, professional improvement, and retention, and although some segregated units would be retained, "qualified" Negroes would be assigned without regard to race. The 

secretary ordered the services to reexamine their policies and submit detailed 

plans for carrying out this directive. 16 

Although responsible for preparing the secretary's directive, Reid and 

Lanham had second though ts about it. They were concerned lest the services 

treat it as an endorsement of their current policies. Reid pointedly explained to 

their representatives on the Personnel Policy Board that the service statements 

due by 1 May should not merely reiterate present practices, but should represent 

a "sincere effort" by the departments to move coward greater racial equality. 17 

Service responses, he warned, would be scrutinized to determine "their adequacy in the light of the intent of the Secretary's policy." Reid later admitted to 

Secretary Johnson that the directive was so broadly formed that it "permits 

almost any practice under it.'' 18 He, Lanham, and others agreed that since its 

contents were bound to reach the press anyway, the policy should be publicized 

in a way that played down generalizations and emphasized the responsibilities 

it imposed for new directions. Johnson agreed, and the announcement of his 

directive, emphasizing the importance of new service programs and setting a 

deadline for their submission, was widely circulated. 19 

The directive reflected Louis Johnson's personality, ambition, and administrative strategy. If many of his associates questioned his personal commitment to the principle of integration, or indeed even his private feeling about 

President Truman's order, all recognized his political ambition and penchant 

for vigorous and direct action. 20 The secretary would recognize the political implications of the executive order just as he would want to exercise personal control over integration, an issue fraught with political uncertainties that an independent presidential committee would only multiply. A dramatic public 

statement might well serve Johnson's needs. By creating at least the illusion of 

forward motion in the field of race relations, a directive issued by the Secretary 

of Defense might neutralize the Fahy Committee as an independent force, protecting the services from outside interference while enhancing Johnson's position in the White House and with the press. A "blustering bully," one of 

Fahy's assistants later called Johnson, whose directive was designed, he charged, 

to put the Fahy Committee out of business. 2 1 

16Memo, SccDef for SA ct al., 6 Apr 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Ser· 

vices; Min, PPB Mtg, 5 Apr49; both in FC file. 17M in, PPB Mtg, 8 Apr49. FC file. 18Memo, Reid for SccDcf, 14 Apr 49, sub: The President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, FC file . 1

9M in, PPB Mrg, 5 May 49; NME Press Rclcsc 3-49A, 20 Apr 49; both in FC file. 

20This conclusion is based on Interviews. author with Charles Fahy, 8 Feb 68, James C. Evans, 6 Apr 69. 

and Brig Gcn Charles T. Lanham, 10 Jan 71. It is also based on letters to author from John Ohly, 9 Jan 71, and 

Thomas Reid, 15 Jan 71. All ioCMH. 21 Mcmo. Kenworthy for Chief of Military History, 13 Oct 76. CMH. 
THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 347 

If such was his motive, the secretary 

was taking a chance. Announcing his 

directive to the press transformed what 

could have been an innocuous, private 

reaffirmation of the department's 

pledge of equal treatment and opportunity into a public exercise in military 

policymaking. The Secretary of Defense 

in effect committed himself to a public 

review of the services' racial practices. In 

this sense the responses he elicited from 

the Army and Navy were a disappointment. Both services contented 

themselves with an outline of their current policies and ignored the secretary's 

request for future plans. The Army offered statistics to prove that its present 

program guaranteed equal opportunity, 

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE JOHNSON while the Navy concluded that its practices and procedures revealed "no inconsistencies" with the policy prescribed by the Secretary of Defense. 22 

Summing up his reaction to these responses for the Personnel Policy Board, Reid 

said that the Army had a poor policy satisfactorily administered, while the Navy 

had an acceptable policy poorly administered. Neither service complied "with 

the spirit or letter of the request.'' 23 

Not all the board members agreed. In the wake of the Army and Navy 

replies, some saw the possible need for separate service policies rather than a 

common policy; considering the many advances enumerated in the replies, one 

member even suggested that Johnson might achieve more by getting the services 

to prosecute their current policies vigorously. Although Chairman Reid 

promised that these suggestions would all be taken into consideration, he still 

hoped to use the Air Force response to pry further concessions out of the Army 

and Navy. 24 

The Air Force plan had been in existence for some time, its implementation 

delayed because Symington had agreed with Royall in January chat a joint 

Army-Air Force plan might be developed and because he and Zuckert needed 

the time to sell the new plan to some of their senior military assistants. 25 But 

greater familiarity with the plan quickly convinced Royall that the Army and Air 

22Memo, Actg SeeNav for Chmn, PPB, 2 May 49. sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the 

Navy and Marine Corps; Memo, SA for SecDef. 21 Apr 49. sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in 

rhe Armed Services; borh in FC file. 

23M in, PPB Mrg, 5 May 49. FC file. 

Hlbid.; sec also Ltr, Thomas Reid to Richard Dalfiume, I Apr 65, Jncl ro Ltr, Reid to author, 15 Jan 71. 

AllinCMH. 

~Mi , War Council Mtg, 11 Jan 49. FC file; see also lnterv, author with W. Stuart Symington, 1974. 

CMH. 
348 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Force posltlons could never be reconciled, and the Air Force plan was independently presented to the Fahy Committee and later, with some revision 

that further liberalized its provisions, to Johnson as the Air Force reply to his 

directive. 26 The Personnel Policy Board approved the Air Force's proposal for 

the integration of a large group of its black personnel, and after discussing it 

with Fahy and the other services, Reid recommended to the Secretary of Defense 

that he approve it also. 27 

To achieve maximum benefit from the Air Force plan, Reid and his 

associates had to link it publicly with the inadequate replies from the other services. Disregarding the views of some board members, he suggested that 

Johnson reject the Army and Navy answers and, without indicating the form he 

thought their answers should take, order them to prepare new proposals.

28 

Johnson would also have to ignore a warning from Secretary of the Army Royall, 

who had recently reminded him that Forrestal had assured Congress during the 

selective service hearings chat the administration would not issue a preemptory 

order completely abolishing segregation. ''I have no reason to believe that the 

President had changed his mind," Royall continued, "but I think you should 

be advised of these circumstances because if any action were later taken by you 

or other authority to abolish segregation in the Army I am confident that these 

Southern senators would remember this incident.' '

29 

Despite Royall's not so subtle warning, Reid's scheme worked. The Secretary 

of Defense explicitly and publicly approved the Air Force program and rejected 

those of the Army and Navy. Johnson told the Army, for example, that he was 

pleased with the progress made in the past few years, but he saw "that much remains to be done and chat the race of progress toward the objectives of the Executive Order must be accelerated . " 30 He gave the recalcitrants until 25 May to 

submit "specific additional actions which you propose to take. " 

The Comm£ttee's Recommendations 

If there was ever any question of what their programs should contain, the 

services had only to turn to the Fahy Committee for plenty of advice. The considerable attention paid by senior officials of the Department of Defense to 

racial matters in the spring of 1949 could be attributed in part to the commonly 

held belief that the Fahy Committee planned an integration crusade, using the 

power of the White House co transform the services' racial policies in a profound 

and dramatic way. Indeed, some members of the committee itself demanded 

that the chairman "lay down the law to the services." 31 But this approach, 

26Memo, SecAF for Chmn. PPB, OSD, 30 Apr 49; Memo, Asst SccAF for SecAF. 20 Apr 49. sub: Department of Air Force Implementation of Depanmenr of Defense Policy on Equality of Treatment and Opportunit{ in rhe Armed Services; both in SecAF files. 2 Min, PPB Meg, 5 May 49; Memo, Reid for SccDef. 10 May 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces, FC file. 

28Ibid. 

2

9Memo, SA for SecDef. 22 Apr 49. OSA 291.2. 30Memo. SecDcf for SA, 13 May 49. sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces; 

idem for SccAF and SecNav, 11 May 49. same sub; DOD Press Release 35-49A. II May 42. All in FC file. 

3L Interv, author with Fahy. 
THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 349 

FAHY COMMITI'EE WITH PRESIDENT TRUMAN AND ARMED SERVICES SECRETARIES. 

Seated with the Preszdent are Secretary Foffestal and Committeeman A. ]. 

Donahue. Standing from the left: Chairman of the Personnel Policy Board 

Thomas R. Rezd; Chief of Staff of the Personnel Policy Board Brig. Gen. Charles 

T. Lanham; Committeemen john H. Sengstacke and William M. Stevenson; 

Secretary Royall; Secretary Symington; Committeemen Lester Granger and 

Dwight R. Palmer,· Secretary SullivatJ; and Charles Fahy. 

Charles Fahy decided, ignored both the personalities of the participants and the 

realities of the situation. 

The armed forces had just won a great world war, and the opinions of the 

military commanders, Fahy reasoned, would carry much weight with the 

American public. In any conflict between the committee and the services, Fahy 

believed that public opinion would be likely to side with the military. He 

wanted the committee to issue no directive. Instead, as he reported to the President, the committee would seek the confidence and help of the armed services 

in working out changes in manpower practices to achieve Truman's objectivesY 

It was important to Fahy that the committee not make the mistake of telling the 

services what should be done and then have to drop the matter with no 

assurances that anything would be done. He was determined, rather, to obtain 

not only a change in policy, but also a' 'program in being'' during the life of the 

committee. To achieve this change the group would have to convince the Army 

and the other services of the need for and justice of integration. To do less, to 

settle for the issuance of an integration directive alone, would leave the services 

}

2 Jbid.: see also Fahy Cmtc, ''A Progress Report for the President,'' 7 Jun 49. FC file. 
3SO INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

the option of later disregarding the reforms on the grounds of national security 

or for other reasons. Fahy explained to the President that all this would take 

'time.H "Take all the time you need," Truman told his committee. 34 This the 

committee proceeded to do, gathering thousands of pages of testimony, while 

its staff under the direction of Executive Secretary Edwin W. Kenworthy coured 

military installations, analyzed the existing programs and operations of the 

three services, and perused the reams of pertinent historical documents. 

That the committee expected the Secretary of Defense co take the lead in 

racial affairs, refraining from dictating policy itself, did not mean that Fahy and 

his associates lacked a definite point of view. From the first , Fahy understood 

Truman's executive order to mean unequivocally that the services would have ro 

abandon segregation, an interpretation reinforced in a later discussion he had 

with the President. 3) The purpose of the committee, in Fahy's view, was not to 

impose integration on the services, but to convince them of the merits of the 

President's order and to agree with them on a plan to make it effective. 

The trouble, the committee quickly learned , lay in trying to convince the 

Army of the practical necessity for integration. On one hand the Army readily 

admitted that there were some advantages in spreading black soldiers through 

the white ranks. ''It might remove any false charges that equal opportunities are 

not provided," General Bradley testified. " It would simplify administration 

and the use of manpower, and it would distribute our losses in battle more 

nearly in proportion to the percentage of the two races. " 36 But then the Army 

had so carefully and often repeated the disadvantages of integration that 

Bradley and others could very easily offer a logical and well-rehearsed apology 

for continuing the Army's current policy. Army officials repeatedly testified, for 

example, that their situation fundamentally differed from those of the other 

two services. The Army had a much higher proportion of Negroes in its ranks, 

10 to 11 percent during the period of the committee's life, and in addition was 

required by law co accept by the thousands recruits, many of them black, whose 

aptitude or education would automatically disqualify them for the Air Force or 

Navy. Armed with these inequities, the Army remained impervious to the 

claims of the Navy and Air Force, defending its time-honored charge that 

segregation was necessary to preserve the efficiency of its combat forces. In 

Zuckert's opinion, the Army was trying to maintain the status quo at any costY 

The Army offered other reasons. Its leaders testified that the unlimited induction of Negroes into an integrated Army would seriously affect enlistments 

and the morale of troops. Morale in particular affected battle efficiency. Again 

General Bradley testified. 

HMemo. Fahy for Brig Gen James L. Collins. Jr. 16 Aug 76. CMH. HJmerv. author with Fahy. 

HJmerv, Blumenson with Fahy, 7 Apr 66: lmerv. author with Davenport, 31 Oct 71; both in CMH. 36Testimony of General Omar N. Bradley, Fahy Cmte Hearings. 28 Mar 49, afternoon session, p. 71. 

37Memo, Asst SccAF for SymingtOn, II Apr 49, sub: Statement of the Secretary of the Army Before the 

President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services- March 28, 1949, 

SecAF files. 
THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 351 

I consider that a unit has high morale when the men have confidence in themselves, 

confidence in their fellow members of their unit, and confidence in their leaders. If we 

try to force integration on the Army before the country is ready to accept these customs, 

we may have difficulty attaining high morale along the Jines I have mentioned. 38 

Underlying all these discussions of morale and efficiency lurked a deep-seated 

suspicion of the combat reliability and effectiveness of black troops and the fear 

that many white soldiers would refuse to serve with blacks. Many Army leaders 

were convinced that the performance of black troops in the past two wars did not 

qualify Negroes for a role in the Army's current mission, the execution of field 

operations in relatively small groups. These reservations were expressed frequently in Army testimony. Bradley, in defense of segregation, for example, 

cited the performance of the 92d Division. When asked whether a 15 percent 

black Army would reduce efficiency, he said, "from our experience in the past I 

think the time might come when it wouldn't, but the average educational standards of these men would not be up to the average of the white soldier. In 

modern combat a man is thrown very much on his own initiative." 39 This attitude was closely related to the Army's estimates of white morale: white 

soldiers, the argument ran, especially many among those southerners who comprised an unusuaJly high proportion of the Army's strength, would not accept 

integration. Many white men would refuse to take orders from black superiors, 

and the mutual dependence of individual soldiers and small units in combat 

would break down when the races were mingled. 

Although these beliefs were highly debatable, they were tenaciously held by 

many senior officials and were often couched in terms that were extremely difficult to refute. For instance, Royall summed up the argument on morale: "I am 

reluctant-and I am sure all sincere citizens will be reluctant- to force a pace 

faster than is consistent with the efficiency and morale of the Army-or to 

follow a course inconsistent with the ability of the Army. in the event of war, to 

take the battlefield with reasonable assurance of success. ''40 

But in time the Fahy Committee found a way, first suggested by its executive 

secretary. to turn the efficiency argument around. Certainly a most resourceful 

and imaginative man, Kenworthy had no doubt about the immorality of 

segregation, but he also understood, as he later told the Secretary of the _Army, 

that whatever might be morally undeniable in the abstract, military efficiency 

had to govern in matters of military.,policy. His study of the record and his investigation of existing service conditions convinced him that segregation actually 

impeded military efficiency. Convinced from the start that appeals to morality 

would be a waste of time, Kenworthy pressed the committee members to tackle 

the services on their own ground-efficiency .

41 After seeing the Army so effectively dismiss in the name of military efficiency and national security the moral 

arguments against segregation as being valid but irrelevant, Kenworthy asked 

Chairman Fahy: 

38Testimony of Bradley, Fahy Cmtc Hearings. 28 Mar 49. afternoon session, pp. 71-72. 

39Jbid .. p. 83. 4<>restimony of the Secretary of the Army, Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Mar 49. morning session, p. 28. 

41Ltr, Kenworthy to SA, 20 Jul 50. FC file; sec also Memo, Kenworthy for Chief of Military History, 13 Oct 

76, CMH. 
352 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

I wonder if the one chance of ge'tting something done isn't to meet the military on their 

own ground-the question of military efficiency. They have defend'~d their Negro maopower policies on the grounds of efficiencl. Have they used Negro manpower efficiently? ... Can it be that the whole policy o segregation, especially in large units like the 

92od and 93rd Division, ADVERSELY AFFECTS MORALE AND EFFICIENCY?42 

The committee did not have to convince the Navy or the Air Force of the 

practical necessity for integration. With four years of experience in integrating 

its ships and stations, the Navy did not bother arguing the merits of integration 

with the committee, but instead focused its attention on black percentages and 

the perennial problem of the largely black Steward's Branch. Specifically, naval 

officials testified that integration increased the Navy's combat efficiency. Speaking for the Air Force, Symington told the committee that ''in our position we 

believe that non-segregation will improve our efficiency in at least some instances" and consequently "it's simply been a case [of] how we are going to do 

it, not whether we are going to do it.'' Convinced of the simple justice of integration, Symington also told the committee: "You've got to clear up that 

basic problem in your heart before you can really get to this subject. Both 

Zuckert and Edwards feel right on the basic problem.' '

43 

Even while the Air Force and the Navy were assuring Fahy of their belief in 

the efficiency of integration, they hastenend to protect themselves against a 

change of heart. General Edwards gave the committee a caveat on integration: 

"if it comes to a matter of lessening the efficiency of the Air Force so it can't go 

to war and do a good job, there isn't any question that the policy of nonsegregation will have to fo by the boards. In a case like that, I'd be one of the 

first to recommend it.' "1 Secretary of the Navy Sullivan also supported this view 

and cautioned the committee against making too much of the differences in the 

services' approach to racial reforms. Each service, he suggested, should be 

allowed to work out a program that would stand the test of war. "If war comes 

and we go back [to segregation], then we have taken a very long step in the 

wrong direction." He wanted the committee to look to the "substance of the 

advance rather than to the apparent progress.' '

45 

Kenworthy predicted that attacking the Army's theory of military efficiency 

would require considerable research by the committee into Army policy as well 

as the past performance of black units. Ironically enough, he got the necessary 

evidence from the Army itself, in the person of Roy K. Davenport. 46 Davenport's education at Fisk and Columbia universities had prepared him for the 

scholar's life, but Pearl Harbor changed all that, and Davenport eventually 

landed behind a desk in the office that managed the Army's manpower affairs. 

One of the first black professionals to break through the armed forces racial barrier, Davenport was not a "Negro specialist" and did not wish to be one. Nor 

could he, an experienced government bureaucrat, be blamed if he saw in the 

42Lrr. Kenworthy to Fahy, 10 Mar 49. FC file. 43Ttstimony of the Secretary of the .Air Force, Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Mar 49. afternoon session, p. 27. 44Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Mar 49, afternoon session, pp. 28-29. 45 Ibid .. p. 29. 46Inrervs, Blumcnson with Fahy. and author with Fahy. 
THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 353 

Fahy Committee yet one more wellmeaning attempt by an outside group 

to reform the Army. Only when Kenworthy convinced him that this committee was serious about achieving 

change did Davenport proceed to explain in great detail how segregation 

limited the availability of military occupational specialties, schooling, and 

assignments for Negroes. 

Kenworthy decided that the time 

had come for Fahy to meet Davenport, 

particularly since the chairman was inclined ro be impressed with, and optimistic over, che Army's response co 

Johnson's directive of 6 April 1949. 

Fahy, Kenworthy knew, was unfamiliar 

with military language and the fine art 

practiced by military staffs of stating a E. W. KENWORTHY 

purpose in technical jargon that would 

permit various interpretations. There was no fanfare, no dramatic scene. Kenworthy simply invited Fahy and Davenport, along with the black officers assigned by the services to assist the committee, to meet informally at his home 

one evening in April. 47 

Never one to waste time, Fahy summarized the committee's activities thus 

far, outlined its dealings with Army witnesses, and then handed out copies of 

the Army's response to Secretary Johnson's directive. Fahy was inclined to 

recommend approval, a course agreed to by the black officers present, but he 

nevertheless turned courteously to the personnel expert from the Department of 

the Army and asked him for his opinion of the official Army position. Davenport did not hesitate. "The directive [the Army's response to Secretary 

Johnson's 6 April directive] isn't worth the paper it's written on," he answered. 

It called for sweeping changes in the administration of the Army's training programs, he explained, but would produce no change because personnel 

specialists at the training centers would quickly discover that their existing procedures, which excluded so many qualified black soldiers, would fit quite comfortably under the document's idealistic but vague language. The Army's 

response, Davenport declared, had been very carefully drawn up to retain 

segregation rather than to end it. 

Chairman Fahy seemed annoyed by this declaration. After all, he had 

listened intently to the Army's claims and promises and was inclined to accept 

the Army's proposal as a slow, perhaps, but certain way to bring about racial integration. He was, however, a tough-minded man and was greatly impressed by 

47Th is incident is described in detail in Interviews, author with Fahy; Davenport, 17 Oct 71; and E. W. 

Kenworthy (by telephone), I Dec 71. See also lnterv, Nichols with Davenport, in Nichols Collection. All in 

CMH. 
354 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

the analysis of the situation presented 

by the Army employee. When Davenport asked him to reexamine the directive with eyes open to the possibility of 

deceit, Fahy walked to a corner of the 

room and reread the Army's statement 

in the light of Davenport's charges. 

Witnesses would later remember the 

flush of anger that came to his face as he 

read. His committee was going to have 

to hear more from Davenport. 

If efficiency was to be the keynote of 

the committee's investigation, Davenport explained, it would be a simple 

thing to prove that the Army was acting inefficiently. In a morning of·complex testimony replete with statistical 

analysis of the Army's manpower 

. management, he and Maj. James D. 

CHARLES FAHY (a later portratt). F l bl k W p · d ower, a ac est . 01nt gra uate 

and personnel officer, provided the committee with the needed breakthrough. 

Step by step they led Fahy and his associates through the complex workings of 

the Army's career guidance program, showing them how segregation caused the 

inefficient use of manpower on several countsY The Army, for example, as part 

of a continuing effort to find men who could be trained for specialties in which 

it had a shortage of men, published a monthly list, the so-called "40 Report," 

of its authorized and actual strength in each of its 490 military occupational 

specialties. Each of these specialties was further broken down by race . The committee learned that no authorization existed at all for Negroes in 198 of these 

specialties, despite the fact that in many of them the Army was under its 

authorized strength. Furthermore, for many of the specialties in which there 

were no authorizations for Negroes no great skill was needed. In short, it was the 

policy of segregated service that allowed the Army, which had thousands of jobs 

unfilled for lack of trained specialists, to continue to deny training and assignment to thousands of Negroes whose aptitude test scores showed them at least 

minimally suited for those jolbs. How could the Army claim that it was operating 

efficiently when a shortage existed and potentially capable persons were being 

ignored? 

One question led to another. If there were no authorizations for black 

soldiers in 198 specialties, what were th~ chances for qualified Negroes to attend 

schools that trained men for these specialties? It turned out that of the 106 

school courses available after a man finished basic training, only twenty-one 

were open to Negroes. That is, 81 percent of the courses offered by the Army 

were closed to Negroes. The Army denied that discrimination was involved. 

48Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Apr 49, morning session. 
THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 355 

Since existing black units could not use 

the full range of the Army's military occupational specialties, went the official 

line of reasoning, it would be wasteful 

and inefficient to train men for nonexistent jobs in those units. It followed that 

the Organization and Training Division 

must exclude many Negroes from being 

classified in specialties for which they 

were qualified and from Army schools 

that would train others for such unneeded specialties. 

This reasoning was in the interest of 

segregation, not efficiency, and Davenport and others were able to prove to 

the committee's satisfaction that the 

Army's segregation policy could be 

defended neither in terms of manpower 

efficiency nor common ~airness: With ROY DAVENPORT 

Davenport and Fowler s testimony, 

Charles Fahy later explained, he began to ''see light for a solution. " 49 He began 

to see how he would probably be able to gain the committee's double objective: 

the announcement of an integration policy for the Army and the establishment 

of a pra~tical l?rogram. that would immediately begin moving the Army from 

segregauon to mtegrauon. 

In fact, military efficiency was a potent weapon which, if skillfully handled, 

might well force the Army into important concessions leading to integration. 

Taking its cue from Davenport and Fowler, the committee would contend that, 

as the increasing complexity of war had created a demand for skilled manpower, 

the country could ill-afford to use any of its soldiers below their full capacity or 

fail to train them adequately. With a logic understandable to President and 

public alike, the committee could later state that since maximum military efficiency demanded that all servicemen be given an equal opportunity tO discover 

and exploit their talents, an indivisible link existed between military efficiency 

and equal opportunity. 50 Thus equal opportunity in the name of military efficiency became one of the committee's basic premises; until the end of its existence the committee hammered away at this prf!mise. 

While the committee's logic was unassailable when applied to the plight of a 

relatively small number of talented and qualified black soldiers, a different solution would have to prevail when the far larger number of Negroes ineligible for 

Army schooling either by talent, inclination, or previous education was considered. Here the Army's plea for continued segregation in the name of military 

efficiency carried some weight. How could it, the Army asked, endanger the 

4

9lmerv, Nichols wirh Fahy, in Nichols Collection. CMH. 

5°Fahy Cmtc, "Second Inrcrim Report to the President, " 27 Jul49, FC file . 
356 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

morale and efficiency of its fighting forces by integrating these men? How could 

it, with its low enlistment standards, abandon its racial quota and risk enlarging 

the already burdensome concentration of "professional black privates?" The 

committee admitted the justice of the Army's claim that the higher enlistment 

score required by the Navy :and Air Force resulted in the Army's getting more 

than its share of men in the low-test categories IV and V. And while Kenworthy 

believed that immediate integration was less likely to cause serious trouble than 

the Army's announced plan of mixing the races in progressively smaller units, 

he too accepted the argument that it would be dangerous to reassign the Army's 

group of professional black privates to white units. Fahy saw the virtue of the 

Army's position here; his committee never demanded the immediate, total integration of the Army. 

One solution to the problem, reducing the number of soldiers with low aptitude by forcing the other services to share equally in the burden of training 

and assimilating the less gifted and often black enlistee and draftee, had recently been rejected by the Navy and Air Force, a rejection endorsed by 

Secretary of Defense Forrestal. Even in the event that the Army could raise its 

enlistment standards and the other services be induced to lower theirs, much 

time would elapse before the concentration of undereducated Negroes could be 

broken up. Davenport was aware of all this when he limited his own recommendations to the committee to matters concerning the integration of black 

specialists, the opening of all Army schools to Negroes, and the establishment of 

some system to monitor the Army's implementation of these reforms. 5

1 

Having gained some experience, the committee was now able to turn the 

Army's efficiency argument against the racial quota. It decided that the quota 

had helped defeat the Gillem Board's aim of using Negroes on a broad professional scale. It pointed out that, when forced by manpower needs and the selective service law to set a lower enlistment standard, the Army had allowed its 

black quota to be filled to a great extent by professional privates and denied to 

qualified black men, who could be used on a broad professional scale, the 

chance to enlist. 52 It was in the name of military efficiency, therefore, that the 

committee adopted a corollary to its demand for equal opportunity in specialist 

training and assignment: the racial quota must be abandoned in favor of a 

quota based on aptitude. 

Fahy was not sure, he later admitted, how best to proceed at this point with 

the efficiency issue, but his committee obviously had to come up with some 

kind of program if only to preserve its administrative independence in the wake 

of Secretary Johnson's directive. As Kenworthy pointed out, short of demanding 

the elimination of all segregated units, there was little the committee could do 

that went beyond Johnson's statement. 53 Fahy, at least, was not prepared to settle for that. His solution, harmonizing with his belief in the efficacy of longrange practical change and his estimate of the committee's strength vis-a-vis the 

5I Imerv, author wirh Davenport, 31 Oct 71 . 

52fahy Cmte, "Initial Recommendations by the President's Comminee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services," attached to Fahy Cmte, "A Progress Report for the President, 7 Jun 49, FC 

file. 

Httr, Kenworthy roFahy. 5 May49. Fahy Papers. Truman Library. 
THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 357 

services' strength, was to prepare a "list of suggestions to guide the Army and 

Navy in its [sic] determinations. ' '

54 The suggestions, often referred to by the 

committee as its "Initial Recommendations, " would in the fullness of rime, 

Fahy thought, effect substantial reforms in the way the Negro was employed by 

the services. 

The committee's recommendations, sent to the Personnel Policy Board in 

late May 1949, are easily summarized. 

55 -Questioning why the Navy's policy, "so 

progressive on its face,'' had attracted so few Negroes into the general service, 

the committee suggested that Negroes remembered the Navy's old habit of 

restricting them.to servant duties. It wanted the Navy to aim a vigorous recruitment program at the black community in order to counteract this lingering 

suspicion. At the same rime the committee wanted the Navy to make a greater 

effort among black high school students to attract qualified Negroes into the 

Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps program. To reinforce these campaigns 

and to remove one more vestige of racial inequality in naval service, .the committee also suggested that the Navy give to chief stewards all the perquisites of chief 

petty officers. The lack of this rating, in particular, had continued to cast doubt 

on the Navy's professed policy, the committee charged. "There is no reason, except custom, why the chief steward should not be a chief petty officer, and that 

custom seems hardly worth the suspicion it evokes.'' Finally, the committee 

wanted the Navy to adopt the same entry standards as the Army. It rejected the 

Navy's claim that men who scored below ninety were unusable in the general 

service and called for an analysis by outside experts to determine what jobs in 

the Navy could be performed by men who scored between seventy and ninety. 

At the same time the committee reiterated that it did not intend the Navy or 

any of the services to lower the qualifications for their highly skilled positions. 

The committee also suggested to the Air Force that it establish a common 

enlistment standard along with the other services. Commenting that the Air 

Force had apparently been able to use efficiently thousands of men with test 

scores below ninety in the past, the committee doubted that the contemporary 

differential in Air Force and Army standards was justified . With a bow to 

Secretary Symington's new and limited integration policy, the committee deferred further recommendations. It showed no such reluctance when it came to the Army. It wanted the Army 

to abolish racial considerations in the designation of military occupational 

specialties, attendance at its schools, and use of its school graduates in their 

military specialties. In line with the establishment of a parity of enlistment standards among the services, the committee wanted the Army to abandon its racial 

quotas. The committee did not insist on an immediate end to segregation in the 

Army, believing that no matter how desirable, such a drastic change could not 

l

4Fahy Cmtc, "A Progress Report for the President," 7 Jun 49, FC file . 

ssMin, War Council Mtg, 24 May 49; fahy Cmte, "Initial Recommendations by the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services," attached ro Fahy Cmte, "A Progress 

Report for the President, 7 Jun49, FC file. Excerpts from the "Initial Recommendations" were scm tO the services via the Personnel Policy Board, which explains the document in the SecNav's files with the penciled notation "Excerptfrom Fahy Recommendation 5/19." See also Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 16 May 49. Fahy Papers, 

Truman Library. 
358 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

be accomplished, as Davenport had warned, without very serious administrative 

confusion. Besides, there were other pragmatic reasons for adopting the 

gradualist approach. For the committee to demand immediate and complete integration would risk an outcry from Capitol Hill that might endanger the whole 

reform program. Gradual change, on the other hand, would allow time for 

qualified Negroes to attend school courses, and the concept that Negroes had a 

right to equal educational opportunities was one that was very hard for the 

segregationists to attack, given the American belief in education and the right of 

eyery child to its benefits. 56 If the Army could be persuaded to adopt these 

recommendations, the committee reasoned, the Army itself would gradually 

abolish segregation . The committee's formula for equality of treatment and opportunity in the Army, therefore, was simple and straightforward, but each of 

its parts had to be accepted to achieve the whole. 

As it was, the committee's program for gradual change proved to be a rather 

large dose for senior service officials. An Army representative on the Personnel 

Policy Board staff characterized the committee's work as "presumptuous," 

"subjective," and "argumentative." He also charged the committee with failing to inte'rpret the executive order and thus leaving unclear whether the President wanted across-the-board integration, and if so how soon. 

57 The Personnel 

Policy Board ignored these larger questions when it considered the subject on 26 

May, focusing its opposition instead on two of the committee's recommendations. It wanted Secretary Johnson to make "a strong representation" to Fahy 

against the suggestion that there be a parity of scores for enlistment in the services. The board also unanimously opposed the committee's suggestion that the 

Army send all qualified Negroes to specialty schools within eighteen months of 

enlistment, arguing that such a policy would be administratively impossible co 

enforce and would discriminate against white servicemen. 58 

Chairman Reid temporized somewhat in his recommendations to Secretary 

Johnson. He admitted that the whole question of parity of entrance standards 

was highly controversial. He recognized the justice in establishing universal 

standards for enlistment through selective service, but at the same time he 

believed it unfair to ask any service to accept volunteers of lesser quality than it 

could obtain through good enlistment and recruitment methods. He wanted 

Johnson to concentrate his attack on the parity question. 59 

Before Johnson could actt on his personnel group's recommendations, the 

Army and Navy formally submitted their second replies to his directive on the 

executive order. Surprisingly, the services provided a measure of support for the 

Fahy Committee. For its part, the Navy was under particular pressure to develop 

an acceptable program. It, after all, had been the first to announce a general integration policy for which it had, over the years, garnered considerable praise. 

%Memo, Kenworthy for Chief of Military History, 13 Ocr 76, CMH. 

Hcol ). F. Cassidy, Comments on Initial Recommendations of Fahy Committee (ca. 26 May 49), FC file. 

58Min, PPBMtg, 26 Mav49. FCfilc. 

59Memo, Reid for Under SecDef. 23 May 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opponunity in the Armed 

Services; idem for SecDd, 1 Jun 49, sub: Fahy Committee Initial Recommendations-Discussion With 

Members of the Fahy Committee; both in PPB files. Sec also Memo, Ohly for Reid, 26 May 49. sub: Equality 

of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, FC tile. 
THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 3 59 

But now it was losing this psychological advantage under steady and persistent 

criticism from civil rights leaders, the President's committee, and, finally, the 

Secretary of Defense himself. Proud of its racial policy and accustomed to the 

rapport it had always enjoyed with Forrestal, the Navy was suddenly confronted 

with a new Secretary of Defense who bluntly noted its ''Jack of any response'' to 

his 6 April directive, thus putting the Navy in the same league as the Army. 

Secretary Johnson's rejection of the Navy's response made a reexamination 

of its race program imperative, but it was still reluctant to follow the Fahy Committee's proposals completely. Although the personnel bureau had already 

planned special recruitment programs, as well as a survey of all jobs in the Navy 

and the mental requirements for each, the idea of making chief petty officers 

out of chief stewards caused "great anger and resentment in the upper reaches 

of BuPers,'' Capt. Fred Stickney of the bureau admitted tO a representative of 

the committee. Stickney was confident that the bureau's opposition to this 

change could be surmounted, but he was not so sure that the Navy would surrender on the issue of equality of enlistment standards. The committee's 

arguments to the contrary, the Navy remained convinced that standardizing entrance requirements for all the services would mean ''lowering the calibre of 

men taken into the Navy.' '

60 

But even here the Navy proved unexpectedly conciliatory. Replying to the 

Secretary of Defense a second time on 23 May, Acting Secretary Dan Kimball 

committed the Navy to a program that incorporated to a great extent the recommendations of the Fahy Committee, including raising the status of chief 

stewards and integrating recruit training in the Marine Corps. While he did not 

agree with the committee's proposal for equality of enlistmem standards, Kimball broke the solid opposition ro the committee's recommendation on this subject by promising to study the issue to determine where men who scored less 

than forty-five (the equivalent of General Classification Test score ninety) could 

be used without detriment to the Navy. 61 

The question of parity of enlistment standards aside, the Navy's program 

generally followed the suggestions of the Fahy Committee, and Chairman Reid 

urged Johnson to accept it.62 The secretary's acceptance was announced on 7 

June and was widely reported in the press. 63 

To some extent the Army had an advantage over the Navy in its dealings 

with Johnson and Fahy. It never had an integration policy to defend, had in fact 

consistently opposed the imposition of one, and was not, therefore, under the 

same psychological pressures to react positively to the secretary's latest rebuff. 

Determined to defend its current interpretation of the Gillem Board policy, the 

Army resisted the Personnel Policy Board's use of the Air Force plan, Secretary 

60Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 24 May 49. FC file. 61 Memo, Aetg SccNav for SecDcf. 23 May 49. sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed 

Forces. FC file. 

62Drah Memo. Reid for SccNav, 3 }un 49, and Memo. Reid for SccDcf. I }un 49. both in PPB files; 

Memo, Kenworthy for Fahy, 30 May 49. sub: Replies of Army and Navy to Mr. Johnson's May II Memo. FC 

file . 

63NME, Off of Pub Info, Release 78-49A, 7 Jun 49. Sec WashingtOn Po!l. June 7. 1949. and New York 

Times, Junc8, 1949. 
360 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Johnson's directive, and the initial recommendations of the Fahy Committee to 

pry out of it a new commitment to integrate. In lieu of such a commitment, 

Acting Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray64 offered Secretary Johnson another 

spirited defense of Circular 124 on 26 May, promising that the Army's next step 

would be to integrate black companies in the white battalions of the combat 

arms. This step could not be taken, he added, until the reactions to placing 

black battalions in white regiments and black companies in composite battalions 

had been observed in detail over a period of time. Gray remained unmoved by 

the committee's appeal for the wider use and broader training of the talented 

black soldiers in the name of combat efficiency and continued to defend the 

status quo. He cited with feeling the case of the average black soldier who 

because of his ''social environment'' had most often missed the opportunity to 

develop leadership abilities and who against the direct competition with the 

better educated white soldier would find it difficult to "rise above the level of 

service tasks." Segregation, Gray claimed, was giving black soldiers the chance 

to develop leadership "unhindered and unfettered by overshadowing competition they are not yet equipped to meet." He would be remiss in his duties, he 

warned Johnson, if he failed to report the concern of many senior officers who 

believed that the Army had already gone too far in inserting black units into 

white units and that ''we are weakening to a dangerous degree the combat efficiency of our Army.' '

65 

The Army's response found the Fahy Committee and the office of the 

Secretary of Defense once again in agreement. The committee rejected Gray's 

statement, and Kenworthy drew up a point-by-point rebuttal. He contended 

that unless the Army took intermediate steps, its first objective, a specific quota 

of black units segregated at the battalion level, would always block the realization of integration, its ultimate objective. 66 The secretary's Personnel Policy 

Board struck an even harder blow. Chairman Reid called Gray's statement a 

rehash of Army accomplishments ''with no indication of significant change or 

step forward . " It ignored the committee's recommendations. In particular, and 

in contrast to the Navy, which had agreed to restudy the enlistment parity question, the Army had rejected the committee's request that it reconsider its quota 

system. Reid's blunt advice to Johnson: reject the Army's reply and demand a 

new one by a definite and early date .

67 

Members of the Fahy Committee met with Johnson and Reid on 1 June. 

Despite the antagonism that was growing between the Secretary of Defense and 

the White House group, the meeting produced several notable agreements. For 

his part, Johnson, accepting the recommendations of Fahy and Reid, agreed to 

64Following the resignation of Secret ary Royall, President Truman nominated Gordon Gray as Secretary of 

the Army. His appointment was confirmed by the Senate on 13 June 1949. A lawyer, Gray had been a 

newsr,aper publisher in North Carolina before his appointment as assistant secretary in 1947. 

6 Memo, Actg SA for SecDcf, 26 May 49. sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Scr· 

vices; see also P&A Summary Sheet, 19 May 49. same sub. FC file. 

66Memo, Kenworthy for Fahy, 30 May 49. sub: Replies of Army and Navy to Mr. Johnson's May II Memo, FC file. 

67Memo, Reid for SecDef, 1 Jun 49, sub: Army and Navy Replies ro Your Memorandum of 6 April on 

Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Army Services; Min, PPB Mrg, 2 Jun 49; both in FC file. 
THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 361 

reject the Army's latest response and 

order the Secretary of the Army and the 

Chief of Staff to confer informally with 

the committee in an attempt to produce 

an acceptable progi:am. At the same 

time, Johnson made no move to order a 

common enlistment standard; he told 

Fahy that the matter was extremely controversial and setting such standards 

would involve rescinding previous interdepartmental agreements. On the 

committee's behalf, Fahy agreed to 

reword the recommendation on schooling for all qualified Negroes within 

eighteen months of enlistmenit and to 

discuss further the parity issue. 68 

General Lanham endorsed the committee's belief that there was a need for 

practical, intermediate steps when he 

drafted a response to the Army for 

Secretary Johnson to sign. ''It is my 

conviction,'' he wanted Johnson to say, 

. _,.r;!:ft' Q~ 

. YOU GO BACK 

AND PUT ON SOME 

CLEAN CLOn~ S/ 

,.. ' 

PRESS NOTICE. Rejection of the 

Army's second proposal as seen by the 

Afro-American, june 14, 1949. 

"that the Department of the Army must meet this issue (the equal opportunity 

imposed by Executive Order 9981) squarely and that its action, no matter how 

modest or small at its inception, must be progressive in spirit and carry with it 

the unmistakable promise of an ultimate solution in consonance with the Chief 

Executive's position and our national policy. " 69 

But the Army received no such specific instruction. Although Johnson rejected the Army's second reply and demanded another based on a careful consideration of the Fahy Committee's recommendations,'0 he deleted Lanham's 

demand for immediate steps toward providing equal opportunity. Johnson's rejection of Lanham's proposal-a tacit rejection of the committee's basic premise 

as well-did not necessarily indicate a shift in Johnson's position, but it did 

establish a basis for future rivalry between the secretary and the committee. Until now Johnson and the committee, through the medium of the Personnel 

Policy Board, had worked in an informal partnership whose fruitfulness was 

readily apparent in the development of acceptable Navy and Air Force programs 

and in Johnson's rejection of the Army's inadequate responses. But this 

68Min, PPB Mtg, 2 Jun 49; Ltr, Fahy to Johnson, 2~ Jul49. FC file . 69oraft Memo, Lanham for SecDcf. 2 Jun 49. FC file. 70Memo, SecDef for SA, 7 Jun 49. sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services; 

NME, Off of Pub Info. Press Release 78-49A. 7 Jun 49. The secretary gave the Army a new deadline of 20 

June, but by mutual agreement of all concerned this date was postponed several times and finally left to the 

Secretary of the Army to submit his program "at his discretion," although at the earliest possible date. See 

Memo, T. Reid for Maj Gcn Levin Allen, 6 Jul49. sub: Army Reply to the Secretary of Defense on Equality of 

Treatment: Min, PPB Mtg, 18 Aug 49. All in FC file. 
362 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940- 1965 

cooperation was to be short-lived; it would disappear altogether as the Fahy 

Committee began to press the Army, while the Secretary of Befense, in reaction, began to draw closer to the Army's position. 71 

A Summer of Discontent 

The committee approached its negotiations with the Army with considerable 

optimism. Kenworthy was convinced that the committee's moderate and concrete recommendations had reassured Reid and the Personnel Policy Board and 

would strengthen its hand in dealing with the recalcitrant Army, 72 and Fahy, 

outlining for the President the progress the committee had made with the services, said that he looked forward tO his coming meetings with Gray and 

Bradley. 73 

To remove any unnecessary obstacle to what Fahy hoped would be fruitful 

sessions, the committee revised its initial recommendations to the Army. First, 

as Fahy had promised Joh nson, it modified its position on guaranteeing 

qualified black soldiers already assigned to units the opportunity to attend 

Army schools within eighteen months. Calling the imbroglio over this issue a 

mere misunderstanding-the committee did not intend that preferential treatment be given Negroes nor that the Army train more people than it 

needed- Fahy explained to Johnson that the committee only wanted to make 

sure that qualified Negroes would have the same chance as qualified white men. 

It would be happy, Fahy said, to work with the Army on rewording the recommendation. 74 The committee also added the suggestion that so long as racial 

units existed, the Army might permit enlisted men in the four lowest grades, at 

their request, to remain in a unit predominantly composed of men of their own 

race. This provision, however, was not to extend to officers and noncommissioned officers in the top three grades, who received their promotions on a 

worldwide competitive basis. Finally, the committee offered a substitute for the 

numerical quota it wanted abolished. So that the Army would not get too many 

low-scoring recruits, either black or white, the committee proposed a separate 

quota for each category in the classification test scores. Only so many voluntary 

enlistments would be accepted in categories I through III, their numbers based 

on the normal spread of scores that existed in both the wartime and peacetime 

Army. If the Army netted more high scorers than average in any period, it 

would induct fewer men from the next category. It would also deny reenlistment 

to any man scoring less than eighty (category IV). 75 

After meeting first with Gray and then the Chief of Staff, Fahy called the 

sessions "frank and cordial" and saw some prospect of accord, although their 

positions were still far apart. 76 Just how far apart had already become apparent 

71

Inrerv, author with Kenworthy. 72Lcr, Kenworthy co Fahy. 20 May 49, Fahy Papers, Truman Library. 

Hfahy Cmce. "A Progress Report for the Presidenr," 7 Jun 49, FC file. 74Lcr, Fahy to Johnson. 15 Jun 49, FC file. 

75 Idem to SA. 25 Jul 49, FC file. 7

6Idem to SecDef, 25 Jul 49, FC file. 
THEFAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 363 

on 5 July when Gray presented Fahy with an outline for yet another program for 

using black soldiers. This new program was based in part on the comments of 

the field commanders, and the Director of Personnel and Administration 

warned that ''beyond the steps listed in this plan, there is very little major compromise area left short of complete integration. " 77 While the Army plan differed from the committee's recommendations in many ways, in essence the 

disagreement was limited to two fundamental points. Determined to retain 

segregated units, the Army opposed the reassignment of school-trained Negroes 

to vacancies in white units; and in order to prevent an influx of Negroes in the 

low achievement categories, the Army was determined to retain the numerical 

quota. 78 

The committee argued that if the Army was to train men according to their 

ability, hence efficiently, and in· accord with the principle of equality, it must 

consider assigning them without regard to race. It could not see h0w removal of 

the numerical quota would result in a flood of Negroes joining the Army, but it 

could see how retaining the quota would prevent the enlistment of blacks for 

long periods of time. These two provisions-that school-trained Negroes be 

freely assigned and that the quota be abolished-were really the heart of the 

committee's plan and hope for the gradual integration of the Army. The provisions would not require the abolition of racial units "at this time," Fahy explained to President Truman, but they would gradually extend the integration 

already practiced in overhead installations and Army schools. The committee 

could not demand any less, he confessed, in light of the President's order. 79 

The committee and the Army had reached a stalemate. As a staff member of 

the Personnel Policy Board put it, their latest proposal and counterproposals 

were simply extensions of what had long been put forth by both parties. He advised Chairman Reid to remain neutral until both sides presented their ''total 

proposal.' '

80 But the press was not remaining neutral. The New York Times, for 

example, accused the Army of stalling and equivocating, engaging in a ''private 

insurrection,'' and trying ''to preserve a pattern of bigotry which caricatures the 

democratic cause in every corner of the world." There was no room for compromise, the T£mes added, and President Truman could not retreat without abdicating as Commander in Chie£.81 Secretary Gray countered with a statement 

77P&A Summary Sheer ro DC/S (Adm), 24 Jun 49, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, CSUSA 291.2 

Negroes. For comments of Army commanders, see the following Memos: Wade H. Haislip (DC/S Adm) for 

Army Cmdrs, 8 )un 49. sub: Draft Recommendations of Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity; Lr Gen M.S. Eddy for CofS, 10 Jun 49. same sub; Lr Gcn W. B. Smith for CofS. 10 Jun 49. same 

sub; Lr GenS.}. Chamberlain, 5th Army Cmdr, for Co£$, 13 Jun 49. same sub; lr Gen John R. Hodge for 

CofS, 14 Jun 49, same sub; Gen Jacob Devers, 13 )un 49, same sub; Gen Thomas T. Handy, 4th Army Cmdr, 

for CofS, 10 Jun 49. sub: Comments on Fahy Committee Draft Recommendations. All in CSUSA 29 1.2 

Nccrocs. 8 An Outline Plan for Utilization of Negro Manpower Submitted by the Army to the President's Committee, 5 Jul 49, lncl to ltr, Fahy ro Sec De£, 25 Jul 49. FC file. See also Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 23 Jun 49, Fahy 

Papers, Truman Library; Fahy Cmte, "Meeting ro Discuss the Proposals Made by the Army as Preliminary ro 

the Third Response," 11 Jul 49. FC file. 

79Lm, Fahy ro SecDcf and SA, 25 Jul 49; idem ro President, 27 Jul 49. All in FC file. 80Memo. Col }. F. Cassidy for Reid. 23 Aug 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the 

Deparrmem of the Army, FC file. 8 1

NewYorkTimei, July 16and 18,1949. 
364 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

that the Army was still under injunction from the Secretary of Defense to submit a new race program, and he was contemplating certain new proposals on the 

military occupational specialty issue. 82 

The Army staff did prepare another reply for the Secretary of Defense, and 

on 16 September Gray met with Fahy and others to discuss it. General Wade H. 

Haislip, the Vice Chief of Staff, claimed privately to Gray that the new reply was 

almost identical with the plan presented to the committee on 5 July and that the 

new concessions on occupational specialties would only require the conversion of 

some units from white to black. 83 Haislip, however, had not reckoned with the 

concession that Gray was prepared to make to Fahy. Gray accepted in principle 

the committee's argument that the assignment of black graduates of specialist 

schools should not be limited to black units or overhead positions but could be 

used to fill vacancies in any unit. At the same time, he remained adamant on 

the quota. When the committee spoke hopefully of the advantages of an Army 

open to all, the Army contemplated fearfully the racial imbalance that might 

result. The future was to prove the committee right about the advantages, but as 

of September 1949·Gray and his subordinates had no intention of giving up the 

quota. 84 Gray did agree, however, to continue studying the quota issue with the 

committee, and Fahy optimistically reported to President Truman: "It is the 

Committee's expectation that it will be able within a few weeks to make a formal report to you on a complete list of changes in Army policy and practices.8 ) 

Fahy made his prediction before Secretary of Defense Johnson took a course 

of action that, in effect, rendered the committee's position untenable. On 30 

September Johnson received from Gray a new program for the employment of 

black troops. Without reference to the Fahy Committee, Johnson approved the 

proposal and announced it to the press. Gray's program opened all military occupational specialties to aU qualified men, abolished racial quotas for the 

Army's schools, and abolished racially separate promotion systems and standards. But it also specifically called for retention of the racial quota on 

enlistments and conspicuously failed to provide for the assignment of black 

specialists beyond those jobs already provided by the old Gillem Board policy.86 

Secretary Gray had asked for Fahy's personal approval before forwarding the 

plan discussed by the two men at such length, but Fahy refused; he wanted the 

plan submitted to his full committee. When Johnson received the plan he did 

not consult the committee at all, although he briefly referred it to the acting 

chairman of the Personnel Policy Board , who interposed no objection.87 

821nrerv, NBC's "Meet the Press" with Gordon Gray. 18 Jul 49; Ltr. SecDef ro Charles Fahy, 3 Aug 49. FC 

Eile. 8

3Mcmo. VCofS for Gray, 29 Aug 49, sub: Equality of Trcatmenr and Opportunity in the Mmed Services. 

CSUSA 291.2 Negroes. 84Interv, Nichols with Gordon Gray, 1953. in Nichols Collection, CMH; Memo, Kenworthy for Cmte, 19 

Sep 49, sub: Meeting With Gray, 16 Sep 49. Fahy Papers, Truman Library. 

~Ltrs, Fahy co President, 21 Sep and 26 Sep 49. both in FC file. 

86Memo, SA for SecDcf, 30 Scp 49. sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 

CSGPA 291.2; DOD, Off of Pub Info. Press Release 256-49. 30 Sep 49. FC file. 87Memo, Kenworthy for Cmtc. 27 Sep 49, sub: Army's Reply to Secretary Johnson, Fahy Papers, Truman 

Library; Note, handwri tten and signed McCrea, attached ro memo, SA for SecDef. 30 Sep 49: Memo, Thomp· 

son for Leva, 3 Ocr 49, sub: Army Policy of Equality of Treatment and Opportunity, CD 30-1-4; both in 

SecDef files. 
THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 365 

It is not difficult to understand Johnson's reasons for ignoring the President's committee. He had been forced to endure public criticism over the protracted negotiations between the Army and the committee. Among liberal 

elements on Capitol Hill, his position- that his directive and the service replies 

made legislation to prohibit segregation in the services unnecessary-was obviously being compromised by the lack of an acceptable Army response.88 In a 

word, the argument over civil rights in the armed forces had become a political 

liability for Louis Johnson, and he wanted it out of the way. Glossing over the 

Army's truculence, Johnson blamed the committee and its recommendations 

for his problem, and when his frontal assault on the committee failed-Kenworthy reported that the secretary tried to have the committee disbanded-he had 

to devise another approach.89 The Army's new proposal, a more reasonablesounding document than its predecessor, provided him with a convenient 

opportunity. Why not quickly approve the program, thereby presenting the 

committee with a fait accompl£ and leaving the President with little excuse for 

prolonging the civil rights negotiations? 

Unfortunately for Johnson the gambit failed. While Fahy admitted that the 

Army's newest proposal was an improvement, for several reasons he could not 

accept it. The assignment of black specialists to white units was a key part of the 

committee's program, and despite Gray's private assurances that specialists 

would be integrated, Fahy was not prepared to accept the Army's "equivocal" 

language on this subject. There was also the issue of the quota, still very much 

alive between the committee and the Army. The committee was bound , furthermore, to resent being ignored in the approval process. Fahy and his 

associates had been charged by the President with advising the services on 

equality of treatment and opportunity, and they were determined to be heard.90 

Fahy informed the White House that the committee would review the Army's 

proposal in an extraordinary meeting. He asked that the President meanwhile 

refrain from commenc.91 

The committee's stand received support from the black press and numerous 

national civil rights organizations, all of which excoriated the Army's position.92 

David K. Niles, the White House adviser on racial matters, warned President 

Truman about the rising controversy and predicted that the committee would 

again reject the Army's proposal. He advised the President to cell the press chat 

Johnson's news release was merely a "progress report," chat it was not final, and 

that the committee was continuing its investigation.93 The President did just 

88Ltr. SecDef to Congressman Vinson, 7 Jul49; Memo, Lanham for Reid, 29 Mar49; both in PPB files. 89Lu, Kenworthy to Nichols, 28 Jul 53. in Nichols Collection, CMH. 

9°Memo, Kenworthy to Cmte, 27 Sep 49. sub: Army's Reply to Secretary Johnson, and Ltr, Kenworthy to 

Joseph Evans, 30 Sep 49. both in Fahy Papers, Truman Library; Memo, Worthington Thompson for Leva, 3 

Oct 49, sub: Army Policy of Equality of Treatment and Opportunity, SccDcf files; Ltr, Kenworthy to Nichols, 

28 Jul 53, in Nichols Collection, CMH. 

91

Mcmo for Red, probably written by Philleo Nash, 3 Oet 49. Nash Collection, Truman Library. 92Sce Los Ange les Star Review, October 6, 1949: Afro-American, October 8, 1949: Washington Post, October6, 1949: PittSburgh Courier, Octoberr 8, 1949; Norfolkjoumal and Guide, October 15, 1949: New York 

Amsterdam News, October 15, 1949. 

93Ltr, Niles to President, 5 Oct 49. Nash Collection, Truman Library. 
366 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

that, adding: "Eventually we will reach, I hope, what we contemplated in the 

beginning. You can't do it all at once. The progress report was a good report, 

and it isn't finished yet. " 94 And lest his purpose remain unclear, the President 

declared that his aim was the racial integration of the Army. 

The President's statement signaled a victory for the committee; its extent 

became apparent only when the Army tried to issue a new circular, revising its 

Gillem Board policy along the lines of the outline plan approved by Johnson on 

30 September. During the weeks of protracted negotiations that followed, the 

committee clearly remained in control, its power derived basically from its willingness to have the differences between the committee and the Army publicized 

and the reluctance of the White House to have it so. The attitudes toward 

publicity were already noticeable when, on 11 October, Fahy suggested to 

Truman some possible solutions to the impasse between the committee and the 

Army. The Secretary of Defense could issue a supplementary statement on the 

Army's assignment policy, the committee could release its recommendations to 

the press, or the Army and the committee could resume discussions.9) 

President Truman ordered his military aide to read the committee's 11 October suggestion and "then take [it) up with Johnson. " 96 As a result the 

Secretary of Defense retired from the controversy. Reminding Gray through intermediaries that he had approved the Army's plan in outline form, Johnson 

declared that it was "inappropriate" for him to approve the plan's publication 

as an Army circular as the Army had requested.97 About the same time , Niles 

informed the Army that any revision of Circular 124 would have to be submitted to the White House before publication, and he candidly admitted that 

presidential approval would depend on the views of the Fahy Committee.

98 

Meanwhile, his assistant, Philleo Nash, predicting that the committee would 

win both the assignment and quota arguments, persuaded Fahy to postpone any 

public statement until after the Army's revised circular had been reviewed by 

the committee. 99 

Chairman Fahy was fully aware of the leverage these actions gave his committee, although he and his associates now had few illusions about the speedy 

end to the contest. "I know from the best authority within P&A," Kenworthy 

warned the committee, that the obstructionists in Army Personnel hoped to see 

the committee submit final recommendations- "what its recommendations are 

they don't much care" - and then disband. Until the committee disbanded, its 

opponents would try to block any real change in Army policy. 10° Kenworthy offered in evidence the current controversy over the Army's instructions to its field 

94Ncws Conference, 6 Ocr 49, as quoted in Pub/if Papers of the President: Harry S. Tmman, 1949, p. 501 . 

9~Memo, Fahy for President, II Oct 49. FC fi le. 96Penciled Note. signed HST, on Memo, Niles for President, Secretary's File (PSF), Truman Library. 

97Mcmo, Maj Gcn Levin C. Allen. Exec Sccy, SccDcf, for SA, 14 Ocr 49; Memo, Vice Adm John McCrea, 

Dir of Staff. PPB, for Allen, 25 Oct 49; both in CD 30-1-4, SecDef files. 

98Memo for Red, Karl Bcndetsen, Spec Consultant to SA, 28 Nov 49. SA files; Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 22 

Nov 49, and Memo, Kenworthy for Fahy Cnnc, 29 Ocr 49. sub: Background ro Proposed Letter to Gray: both 

in Fahy Papers, Truman Library. 

99Ltr, Fahy to Cmte. 17 Nov 49, Fahy Papers, Truman Library. 100Mcmo, Kenworthy for Cmte, 29 Oct 49, sub: Background ro Proposed Letter ro Gray, Fahy Papers, 

Truman Library. 
THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 367 

commanders. These instructions, a copy of the outline plan approved by 

Secretary Johnson, had been sent to the commanders by The Adjutant General 

on 1 October as ''additional policies'' pending a revision of Circular 124. 101 Included in the message, of course, was Gray's order to open all military occupational specialties to Negroes; but vthen some commanders, on the basis of their 

interpretation of the message, began integrating black specialists in white units, 

officials in the Personnel and AdminiStration and the Organization and Training Divisions dispatched a second message on 27 October specifically forbidding 

such action "except on Department of Army orders." 102 Negroes would continue to be authorized for assignment to black units, the message explained, 

and to ''Negro spaces in T /D [overhead] units.'' In effect, the Army staff was 

ordering commanders to interpret the secretary's plan in its narrowest sense, 

blocking any possibility of broadening the range of black assignments. 

Kenworthy was able to turn this incident to the committee's advantage. He 

made a practice of never locking his Pentagon office door nor his desk drawer. 

He knew that Negroes, both civilian and military, worked in the message 

centers, and he suspected that if any hanky-panky was afoot they would discover 

it and he would be anonymously apprised of it. A few days afler the dispatch of 

the second message, Kenworthy opened his desk drawer co find a copy. For the 

first and only time, he later explained, he broke his self-imposed rule of relying 

on negotiations between the military and the committee and its staff in camera. 

He laid both messages before a longtime friend of his, the editor of the 

Washington Post's editorial page. 10J Thus delivered to the press, the second 

message brought on another round of accusations, corrections, and headlines to 

the effect that ''The Brass Gives Gray the Run-Around.'' Kenworthy was able co 

denounce the incident as a "step backward" that even violated the Gillem 

Board policy by allocating "Negro spaces" in overhead units. The Army staff's 

second message nullified the committee's recommendations since they depended ultimately on the unlimited assignment of black specialists. The 

message demonstrated very well, Kenworthy told the committee, that careful 

supervision of the Army's racial policy would be necessary. 104 Some newspapers 

were less charitable. The Pittsburgh Courier charged that the colonel blamed for 

the release of the second message had been made the ''goat'' in a case that 

involved far more senior officials, and the Washington Post claimed that the 

message "vitiates" even the limited improvements outlined in the Army's plan 

as approved by Secretary Johnson. The paper called on Secretary Gray to assert 

himself in the case. 105 

101Msg. TAG to Chief, AFF. c:t at.. WCL 45586, 011900Z Oct49, copy in AG 220.3. 

I02Mcmo, D/PA for TAG. 25 Oct 49. sub: Assignment of Negro Enlisted Personnel, with attached Memo 

for Red, Col John H. Riepe, Chief. Manpower Control Gp, DIP A; Memo. Deputy Dir. PA. for Gen Brooks 

(Dir of PA). 3 Nov 49. same sub; Msg. TAG to Chief. AFF, et at., WCL 20682. 27 Oct 49. All in CSGPA 

291.2 (25 Oct 49). 103Memo, Kenworthy for Chief of Military History. 13 Oct 76, CMH. 104Idem for Cmte. 29 Oct 49, sub: Instructions to Commanding Generals on New Army Policy. Fahy 

Papers, Truman Library. 105Lem Graves, Jr. (Washington correspondent of the Pimburgh Courier). "A Colonel Takes the Rap." 

Pimburgh Courier, Ocrober 29. 1949; Washington Post, November 3, 1949. 
368 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

A furious secretary, learni.ng of the second message from the press stories, 

did enter the case. Branding the document a violation of his announced policy, 

he had it rescinded and, publicizing a promise made earlier to the committee, 

announced that qualified black specialists would be assigned to some white 

units. 106 At the same time Gray was not prepared to admit that the incident 

demonstrated how open his pJan was to evasion, just as he refused to admit that 

his rescinding of the errant message represented a change in policy. He would 

continue, in effect, the plan approved by the Secretary of Defense on 30 

September, he told Fahy. 107 

The Army staff's draft revision of the Gillem Board circular, sent to the committee on 25 November, reflected Gray's 30 September plan. 108 In short, when 

it emerged from its journey through the various Army staff agencies, the 

proposed revision still contained none of the committee's key recommendations. It continued the severe restrictions on the assignment of Negroes who had 

specialty training; it specifically retained the numerical quota; and, with several 

specific exceptions, it carefully preserved the segregation of Army life. 109 Actually, the proposed revision amounted to little more than a repetition of the 

Gillem Board policy with minor modifications designed to make it easier to 

carry out. Fahy quickly warned the Deputy Director of Personnel and Administration that there was no chance of its winning the committee's 

approval. 110 

Assignments 

The quota and assignments issues remained the center of controversy between the Army and the committee. Although Fahy was prepared to postpone a 

decision on the quota while negotiations continued, he was unwilling to budge 

on the assignments issue. As the committee had repeatedly emphasized, the 

question of open, integrated assignment of trained Negroes was at the heart of 

its program. Without it the opening of Army schools and military occupational 

specialties would be meaningless and the intent of Executive Order 9981 

frustrated. 

At first glance it would seem that the revision of Circular 124 supported the 

assignment of Negroes to white units, as indeed Secretary Gray had recently 

promised. But this was not really the case, as Kenworthy explained to the committee. The Army had always made a distinction between specialz'sts, men 

especially recruited for critically needed jobs, and spec£alt£es, those military occupations for which soldiers were routinely trained in Army schools. The draft 

revision did not refer to this second and far larger category and was intended to 

provide only for the placement of the rare black specialist in white units. The 

106DOD, Off of Pub Info. Release 400-49. 3 Nov 49. FC file . 1

0 7Ltr, SA to fahy, 17 Nov 49, FC fik 108Ltr, Bendetscn tO Fahy, 25 Nov 49; Memo for Red. Kenworthy, 28 Nov 49; both in Fahy Papers, 

Truman Library. 109 Army Draft No. 1 of Revised Circular 124, 16 Nov 49. FC file. 110Ltr, Fahy to Maj Gcn C. E. Byers, 30 Nov 49. FC file. 
THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 369 

document as worded even limited the use of Negroes in overhead units. Only 

those with skills considered appropriate by the personnel office-that is, those 

who possessed a specialty either inappropriate in a black unit or in excess of its 

needs-would be considered for racially mixed overhead units. 111 

Fahy was determined to have the Army's plan modified, and furthermore he 

had learned during the past few weeks how to get it done. On 9 December Kenworthy telephoned Philleo Nash at the White House to inform him of the considerable sentiment in the committee for publicizing the whole affair and read 

to him the draft of a press statement prepared by Fahy. As Fahy expected, the 

White House wanted to avoid publicity; the President, through Nash, assured 

the committee that the issues of assignment and quota were still under discussion . Nash suggested that instead of a public statement the committee prepare a 

document for the Army and the White House explaining what principles and 

procedures were demanded by the presidential order. In his opinion, Nash 

assured Kenworthy. the White House would order the Army to meet the committee's recommendations. 112 

White House pressure undoubtedly p layed a major role in the resolution of 

the assignment issue. When on 14 December 1949 the committee presented the 

Army and the President with its comments on the Army's proposed revision of 

Circular 124 . it took the first step toward what was to be a rapid agreement on 

black assignments. At the same time it would be a mistake to discount the effectiveness of reasonable men of good will discussing their very real differences in 

an effort to reach a consensus. There is considerable evidence that when Fahy 

met on 27 December with Secretary Gray and General J. Lawton Collins, the 

Chief of Staff. he was able to convince them that the committee's position on 

the assignment of black graduates of specialist schools was right and 

inevitable. 113 

While neither Gray nor Collins could even remotely be described as social 

reformers, both were pragmatic leaders, prepared co accept changes in Army 

tradition .

114 Collins, unlike his immediate predecessors, was not so much concerned with finding the Army in the vanguard of American social practices as he 

was in determining that its racial practices guaranteed a more efficient organization. While he wanted to retain the numerical quota, lest the advantages of an 

Army career attract so large a number of Negroes that a serious racial imbalance 

would result, he was willing to accept a substantive revision of the Gillem Board 

policy. 

Gray was perhaps more cautious than Collins. Confessing later that he had 

never considered the question of equal opportunity until Fahy brought it to his 

attention, Gray began with a limited view of the executive order-the Army 

111Memo, Kenwonhy for President's Cmte, 18 Nov 49. sub: Successor Policy to WD Cir 124; idem for 

Fahy. 28 Nov 49. sub: Revised WD Cir 124: both in Fahy Papers. Truman Library. 12Mcmo for Red, Kenwonhy, 9 Dec 49, sub: Telephone Conversation With Nash, Fahy Papers, Truman 

Librarr,. 11 lntcrv, Nichols with Fahy. J. Lawton Collins became Chic£ of Staff of the Army on 1 August 1949, suc· 

cccding Omar Bradley who stepped up tO the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 114Intcrvs. Nichols with Gray and Fahy, and author with Collins. 
370 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

' 

SECRETARY OF THE ARMY GRAY 

must eliminate racial discrimination, 

not promote racial integration. In their 

meeting on 27 December Fahy was able 

to convince Gray that the former was 

impossible without the latter. According to Kenworthy, Gray 

demonstrated an "open and unbiased" 

view of the problem throughout all 

discussions. 11 ~ 

The trouble was, as Roy Davenport 

later noted, Gordon Gray was a lawyer, 

not a personnel expert, and he failed to 

grasp the full implications of the Army 

staff's recommendations. 116 Davenport 

was speaking from firsthand knowledge 

because Gray, after belated ly learning 

of his experience and influence with the 

committee, sene for him. Politely but 

explicitly Davenport told Gray that the 

staff officers who were advising him and 

writing the memos and directives to which he was signing his name had deceived him. Gray was at first annoyed and incredulous; after Davenport finally 

convinced him, he was angry. Kenworthy, years later, wrote that the GrayDavenport discussion was decisive in changing Gray's mind on the assignment 

issue and was of great help to the Fahy Committee. 11 7 

Fahy reduced the whole problem to the case of one qualified black soldier 

denied a job because of color and pictured the loss to the Army and the country, 

eloquently pleading with Gray and Collins at the 27 December meeting to try 

the committee's way. "I can't say you won't have problems," Fahy concluded, 

"but try it." Gray resisted at first because "this would mean the complete end 

of segregation," but unable to deny the logic of Fahy's arguments he agreed to 

rry. 118 There were compromises on both sides. When Collins pointed out some 

of the administrative difficulties that could come from the "mandatory" 

language recommended by the committee, Fahy said that the policy should be 

administered "with latitude." To that end he promised to suggest some 

changes in wording that would produce "a policy with some play in the joints. " 

The conferees also agreed that the quota issue should be downplayed while the 

parties continued their discussions on that subject. 119 

Agreement followed rapidly on the heels of the meeting of the principals. 

Roy Davenport presented the committee members with the final draft of the 

II)Ltr. Kenworthy ro Gray. 20 Jul ~0. FC file ; lntcrvs. Nichols with Gray. Davenport, and Fahy. 1161nterv. author with Davenport, 31 Oct 71. 117Mcmo. Kenworthy for Chief of Military History, 13 On 76. CMH . 118Mcmo for Red. Karl R. Bcndctscn, Spec Asst to SA. 27 Dec 49. sub: Conference With Judge Charles 

Fahr· SA files. lntcrvs. Nichols with Gray and Fahy. author with Fahy, and Blumcnson with Fahy. 1

9Mcmo for Red. Bcndctscn, 27 Dec 49. SA files: Ltr. Fahy ro Cmrc, 27 Dec 49. Fahy papers. Truman 

Library. 
THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 3 71 

Army proposal and urged that it be accepted as "the furthest and most 

hopeful they could get." 120 Lester 

Granger, Davenport later reported, was 

the first to say he would accept, with 

Fahy and the rest following suit, 121 and 

on 16 January 1950 the Army issued 

Special Regulation 600-629-1, 

Utilization of Negro Manpower in the 

Army, with the committee's blessing. 

Fahy reported to Truman that the 

new Army policy was consistent with 

the executive order. Its paragraphs on 

assignments spelled out the principle 

long advocated by the committee: 

"Negro manpower possessing appropriate skills and qualifications will 

be utilized in accordance with such 

skills and qualifications, and will bt 

assigned to any ... unit without regard GENERAL COLLINS 

to race or color." Adding substance to this declaration, the Army also an· 

nounced that a list of critical specialties in which vacancies existed would be 

published periodically and ordered major commanders to assign Negroes who 

possessed those specialties to fill the vacancies without regard to race. The first 

such list was published at the same time as the new regulation. The Army had 

taken a significant step, Fahy told the President, toward the realization of equal 

treatment and opportunity for all soldiers. 122 

Secretary of Defense Johnson was also optimistic, but he warned Gordon 

Gray that many complex problems remained and asked the Army for periodic 

reports. His request only emphasized the fact that the Army's new regulation 

lacked the machinery for monitoring compliance with its provisions for integration. As the history of the Gillem Board era demonstrated, any attempt to 

change the Army's traditions demanded not only exact definition of the intermediate steps but also establishment of a responsible authority to enforce 

compliance. 

Quotas 

In the wake of the Army's new assignment regulation, the committee turned 

its full attention to the last of its major recommendations, the abolition of the 

numerical quota. Despite months of discussion, the disagreement between the 

120lmerv. Nichols with Davenport. 121Ltr, Kenworthy to Nichols. 29 Jul 53. in Nichols Collection. CMH; lmerv, Nichols with Davenport. 112Memo. Fahy for Presiden1, 16 Jan ~0. FC file; SR 600-629-1. 16 Jan ~0; DOD, Off of Pub Info. 

Release 64-~0. 16 Jan ~0. The special regulation was circulated worldwide on the day of the issue; see Memo. 

D/P&A1oTAG, 16Jan~O. WDGPA291.2 . 
372 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Army and the committee over the quota showed no signs of resolution. Simply 

put, the Fahy Committee wanted the Army to abolish the Gillem Board's racial 

quota and to substitute a quota based on General Classification Test scores of 

enlistees. The committee found the racial quota unacceptable in terms of the executive order and wasteful of manpower since it tended to encourage the 

reenlistment of low-scoring Negroes and thereby prevented the enlistment of 

superior men. None of the Negroes graduating from high school in June 1949, 

for example, no matter how high their academic rating, could enlist because the 

black quota had been filled for months. Quotas based on test scores, on the 

other hand, would limit enlistment to only the higher scoring blacks and whites. 

Specifically, the committee wanted no enlistment to be decided by race . The 

Army would open all enlistments to anyone who scored ninety or above, 

limiting the number of blacks and whites scoring between eighty and eightynine to 13.4 percent of the ·total Army strength, a percentage based on World 

War II strengths. With rare exception it would close enlistment to anyone who 

scored less than eighty. Applying this formula to the current Army, 611,400 

men on 31 March 1949, and assessing the number of men from seventeen to 

thirty-four years old in the national population, the committee projected a total 

of 65,565 Negroes in the Army, almost exactly 10 percent of the Army's 

strength. In a related statistical report prepared by Davenport, the committee 

offered figures demonstrating that the higher black reenlistment rates would 

not increase the number of black soldiers. 123 

The Army's reply was based on the premise that "the Negro strength of the 

Army must be restricted and that the population ratio is the most equitable 

method [of] limitation.'' In fact, the only method of controlling black strength 

was a numerical quota of original enlistments. The personnel staff argued that 

enlistment specifically unrestricted by race, as the high rate of unrestricted black 

reenlistment had demonstrated, would inevitably produce a "very high percentage of Negroes in the Army." A quota based on the classification test scores 

could not limit sufficiently the number of black enlistments if, as the committee 

insisted, it required that identical enlistment standards be maintained for both 

blacks and whites. Looking at the census figure another way, the Army had its 

own statistics to prove its point. Basing its figures on the number of Negroes 

who became eighteen each month (11 ,000), the personnel staff estimated that 

black enlistments would total from 15 to 20 percent of the Army's monthly 

strength if an entrance quota was imposed with the cut-off score set at ninety or 

from 19 to 31 percent if the enlistment standards were lowered to eighty. It also 

pointed to the experience of the Air Force where with no quotas in the third 

quarter of 1949 black enlistments accounted for 16 .4 percent of the total; even 

123D/PA Summary Sheer for SA, 28 Feb 50. sub: Fahy Comminee Proposal re: Numerical Enlistment 

Quota, CSGPA 291.2 (2 Nov 49); Roy Davenport, "Figures on Reenlistment Rate and Explanation," Document PC XL. FC file; Memo, Fahy for SA, 9 Feb 50. sub: Recapitulation of rhe Proposal of the President's 

Committee for rhc Abolition of the Racial Quota, FC file; Memo, Kenworthy for Dwight Palmer (cmte 

member), 8 Feb 50, Fahy Papers, Truman Library. 
THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 373 

when a GCT quota of 100 was imposed in October and November, 10 percent 

of all Air Force enlistees were black. 124 

The committee quickly pointed out that the Army had neglected to subtract 

from the monthly figure of 11,000 blacks those physically and mentally disqualified (those who scored below eighty) and those in school. Using the Army's 

own figures and taking into account these deductions, the committee predicted 

that Negroes would account for 10.6 percent of the men accepted in the 8,000 

monthly intake, probably at the GCT eighty level, or 5 percent of the 6,000 

men estimated acceptable at the GCT ninety level. m 

On 14 December 1949 the Army, offering to compromise on the quota, 

retired from its statistical ba.ttle with the committee. It would accept the 

unlimited enlistment of Negroes scoring 100 or better, limiting the number of 

those accepted below 100 so that the total black strength would remain at 10 

percent of the Army's population.

126 Attractive to the committee because it 

would provide for the enlistment of qualified men at the expense of the less 

able , the proposal was nevertheless rejected because it still insisted upon a racial 

quota. Again there was a difference between the committee and the Army, but 

again the advantage lay with the committee, for the White House was anxious 

for the quota problem to be solved. 127 

Niles warned the President that the racial imbalance which had for so long 

frustrated equal treatment and opportunity for Negroes in the Army would continue despite the Army's new assignment policy unless the Army was able to 

raise the quality of its black enlistees. Niles considered the committee's proposal 

doubly attractive because, while it abolished the quota, it would also raise the 

level of black recruits. The proposal was sensible and fair, Niles added, and he 

believed it would reduce the number of black soldiers as it raised their quality. It 

had been used successfully by the Navy and Air Force, and, as it had in those 

services, would provide for the gradual dissolution of the all-black units rather 

than a precipitous change .

128 The Army staff did not agree, and as late as 28 

February 1950 the Director of Personnel and Administration was recommending 

that the Army retain the racial quota at least for all Negroes scoring below 110 

on the classification test. 129 

Secretary Gray, aware that the Army's arguments would not move the committee, was sure that the President did not want to see a spectacular and 

precipitous rise in the Army's black strength. He decided on a personal appeal 

to the Commander in Chief. 130 The Army would drop the racial quota, he told 

124Memo, A erg D/ PA for Karl R. Bendetsen, Spec Asst to SA, 13 Dec 49. sub: Ten Percent Racial Quota; 

DIP A Summary Sheet, with Incl. for SA., 28 Feb 50. sub: Fahy Committee Proposals re: Numerical Enlistment Quota; both in CSG P A 291.2 (2 Nov 49). The quotations are from the former document. 12 ~Memo , Kenworthy for Karl Bcndcrsen. 19 Oct 49. sub: Manpower Policy, Fahy Papers, Truman 

Librarr 12 Memo for Red. Kenworrhy. 14 Dec 49. sub: Conference With Maj Lieblich and Col Smith. 14 Dec 49. 

FCfilc. 127Memo, Fahy for President's Cmte, I Feb 50. Fahy Papers. Truman Librar)•. 128

Ltr, Niles to President, 7 Feb 50. Secretary's File (PSF). Truman Library. 129D/PA Summary Sheet for SA, 28 Feb 50. sub: Fahy Comminee Proposal re: Numerical Enlistment 

Quota, CSGPA 291.2 (2 Nov 49). 130lnrcrv, Nichols with Gray. 
374 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Truman on 1 March, with one proviso: " If, as a result of a fair trial of this new 

system, there ensues a disproportionate balance of racial strengths in the Army, 

it is my understanding that I have your authority to return to a system which 

will, in effect, control enlistments by race.' rt 31 The President agreed. 

At the President's request, Gray outlined a program for open recruitment, 

fixing April as the date when all vacancies would be open to all qualified individuals. Gray wanted to handle the changes in routine fashion. With the committee's concurrence, he planned no public announcement. From his vacation 

quarters in Key West, Truman added a final encouraging word : " I am sure that 

everything will work out as it should. " 132 The order opening recruiting to all 

races went out on 27 March 1950. 133 

Despite the President's optimism, the Fahy Committee was beginning to 

have doubts about just how everything would work out. Specifically, some 

members were wondering how they could be sure the Army would comply with 

the newly approved policies. Such concern was reasonable , despite the Army's 

solemn commitments, when one considers the committee's lengthening experience with the Defense Department's bureaucracy and its familiarity with the 

liabilities of the Gillem Board policy. The committee decided, therefore , to include in its final report to the President a request for the retention of a watchdog 

group co review service practices. In this its views clashed directly with those of 

Secretary Johnson, who wanted the President to abolish the committee and 

make him solely responsible for the equal treatment and opportunity 

program. 134 

Niles, anxious to settle the issue , tried to reconcile the differences135 and successfully persuaded the committee to omit a reference in its final report to a successor group to review the services' progress. Such a move, he told Kenworthy, 

would imply that, unless policed, the services would not carry out their programs. Public discussion abou t how long the committee was to remain in effect 

would also tend to tie the President's hands. Niles suggested instead that the 

committee members discuss t he matter with the President when they met with 

him co submit their final report and perhaps suggest chat a watchdog group be 

appointed or their committee be retained on a standby basis for a later review of 

service actions. 136 Before the committee met with the President on 22 May, Niles 

recommended to Truman that he make no commitment on a watchdog 

group. 137 Privately, Niles agreed with Clark Clifford that the committee should 

be retained for an indefinite period, but on an advisory rather than an operating 

basis so that, in Clifford's words, "it will be in a position to see that there is not 

13 1Ltr. SA to President, I Mar 50. Fahy Papers. Truman library. 

1}2Memo. President for SA. 27 Ma r 50. FC file; Memo, SA for President. 24 Mar 50. sub: Discontinuance 

of Racial Enlistment Quotas, copy in CSGPA 291 .2. 1

HMsg. TAG to Chief, AFF. et al .. Fore Monroe. Va .. WCL 44600, 27 Mar 50. copy in FC file. 

''4Memo, Clark Clifford for President (ca. Mar 50), Nash Collection, Truman Library. ll)lntcrv. author with Kenworthy. 

t36Mcmo, Kenworthy for Fahy. 28 Apr 50. Fahy Papers, Truman library. 137Ltr, Niles to President. 22 May 50, Nash Collection, Truman library. 
THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 375 

a gap between policy and an adminiStration of policy in the Defense Establishment.'' 138 

The President proceeded along these lines. Several months after the committee presented its final report, Freedom to Serve, 139 in a public ceremony, 

Truman relieved the group of its assignment. Commenting that the services 

should have the opportunity to work out in detail the new policies and procedures initiated by the committee, he told Fahy on 6 July 1950 that he would 

leave his order in effect, noting that "at some later date, it may prove desirable 

to examine the effectuation of your Committee's recommendations, which can 

be done under Executive Order 9981." 140 

An Assessment 

Thus ended a most active period in the history of armed forces integration, a 

period of executive orders, presidential conferences, and national hearings, of 

administrative infighting broadcast to the public in national headlines. The 

Fahy Committee was the focus of this bureaucratic and journalistic excitement. 

Charged with examining the policies of the services in light of the President's 

order, the committee could have glanced briefly at current racial practices and 

automatically rati~ied Secretary Johnson's general policy statement. Indeed, this 

was precisely what Walter White and other civil rights leaders expected . But the 

committee was made of sterner stuff. With dedication and with considerable 

political acumen, it correctly assessed the position of black servicemen and subjected the racial policies of the services to a rigorous and detailed examination, 

the first to be made by an agency outside the Department of Defense. As a 

result of this scrutiny, the committee clearly and finally demonstrated that 

segregation was an inefficient way to use military manpower; once and for all it 

demolished the arguments that the services habitually used against any demand 

for serious change. Most important is the fact that the committee kept alive the 

spirit of reform the Truman order had created. The committee's definition of 

equal treatment and opportunity became the standard by which furure action 

on racial issues in the armed forces would be measured. 

Throughout its long existence, the Fahy Committee was chiefly concerned 

with the position of the Negro in the Army. After protracted argument it won 

from the Army an agreement to abolish the racial quota and to open all 

specialties in all Army units and all Army schools and courses to qualified 

Negroes. Finally, it won the Army's promise to cease restricting black servicemen to black units and overhead installations alone and to assign them instead on the basis of individual ability and the Army's need. 

As for the other services, the committee secured from the Navy a pledge to 

give petty officer status to chief stewards and stewards of the first , second, and 

third class, and its influence was discernible in the Navy's decision to allow 

stewards to transfer to the general service. The committee also made, and the 

Navy accepted, several practical suggestions that might lead to an increase in the 

I38Mcmo. Cliffo(d for President, Nash Collecrion, Truman Library. 

I39Freetlom to Serve: Equality of Treatmml and Opportunity in the Armed Services; A Report by the 

Pre.rident 's Committee (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1950). 140Ltr, President w Fahy, 6 Jul 50. Fahy Papers. Truman Library. 
376 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

number of black officers and enlisted men. The committee approved the Air 

Force integration program and publicized the success of this major reform as it 

was carried out during 1949; for the benefit of the reluctant Army, the committee could point to the demonStrated ability of black servicemen and the 

widespread acceptance of integration among the rank and file of the Air Force. 

In regard to the Marine Corps. however. the committee was forced to 

acknowledge that the corps had not yet ''fully carried out Navy policy.'' 141 

The Fahy Committte won from the services a commitment to equal treatment and opportunity and a practical program to achieve that end. Yet even 

with this victory and the strong support of many senior military officials, the 

possibility that determined foes of integration might erect roadblocks or that 

simple bureaucratic inertia would delay progress could not be discounted. There 

was, for example, nothing in the postwar practices of the Marine Corps, even the 

temporary integration of its few black recruits during basic training, that hinted 

at any long-range intention of adopting the Navy's integration program. And 

the fate of one of the committee's major recommendations, that all the services 

adop~ equal enlistment standards, had yet to be decided. The acceptance of this 

recommendation hinged on the results of a Defense Department study to determine the jobs in each service that could be filled by men in the lowest mental 

classification category acceptable to all three services. Although the Navy and 

the Air Force had agreed ro reexamine tbe matter, they had consistently 

opposed the application of enlistment parity in the past, and the Secretary of 

Defense's Personnel Policy Board had indorsed their position. Secretary Forreseal, himself, had rejected the concept, and there was nothing in the record to 

suggest that his successor would do otherwise. Yet the parity of enlistment standards was a vital part of the committee's argument for the abolition of the 

Army's racial quota. If enlistment standards were not equalized, especially in a 

period when the Army was turning to Selective Service for much of its manpower, the number of men in the Army's categories IV and V was bound to increase, and that increase would provide strong justification for reviving the racial 

quota. The Army staff was aware , if rhe public was nor, that a resurrected quota 

was possible, for the President had given the Secretary of the Army authority to 

take such action if there was "a disproportionate balance of racial strengths." 14 2 

The Army's concern with disproportionate balance was always linked to a 

concern with the influx of men, mostly black, who scored poorly on the 

classification rests. The problem, the Army repeatedly claimed, was not the 

quantity of black troops but their quality. Yet at the time the Army agreed to 

the committee's demand to drop the quota, some 40 percent of all black soldiers 

scored below eighty. These men could rarely profit from the Army's agreement 

to integrate all specialist training and assignments. The committee, aware of the 

problem, had strongly urged the Army to refuse reenlistment, with few exceptions. to anyone scoring below eighty. On 11 May 1950 Fahy reminded Secretary 

of the Army Frank Pace, Jr .• that despite the Army's promise to eliminate its 

141 !·reed om to Serve, p. 27. 

1.tr , SA to President. 1 Mar 50. Fahy Papers. Truman Library. 
THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS !HE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 3 77 

"No LONGER A DREAM." The Pittsburgh Courier's reaction to the services' 

agreements with the Fahy Committee, May 20, 1950. 

low scorers it continued to reenlist men scoring less than seventy.

143 But by July 

even the test score for first-time enlistment into the Army had declined to seventy because men were needed for the Korean War. The law required that 

whenever Selective Service began drafting men the Army would automatically 

lower its enlistment standards to seventy. Thus, despite the committee's recommendations, the concentration of low-scoring Negroes in the lower grades continued to increase, creating an even greater pool of men incapable of assignment 

to the schools and specialties open without regard to race. 

Even the Army's promise to enlarge gradually the number of specialties 

open to Negroes was not carried out expeditiously. By July 1950, the last month 

of the Fahy Committee's life, the Army had added only seven more specialties 

with openings for Negroes to the list of forty published seven months before at 

the time of its agreement with the committee. In a pessimistic mood , Kenwor143Memo, Fahy for SA, 11 . May 50, Fahy Papers, Truman Library. Frank Pace, an Arkansas lawyer and 

former Assisram Director of rhc Bureau of the Budget, succeeded Gordon Gray as Secretary of rhe Army on 12 

April 1950. 
378 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

thy confessed to Judge Fahy144 that "so long as additions are not progressively 

made to the critical list of MOS in which Negroes can serve, and so long as 

segregated units continue to be the rule, all MOS and schools can not be said to 

be open to Negroes because Negro units do not have calls for many of the advanced MOS.'' Kenworthy was also disturbed because the Army had disbanded 

the staff agency created to monitor the new policies and make future recommendations and had transferred both its two members to other duties. In the light of 

progress registered in the half year since the Army had adopted the committee's 

proposal, Kenworthy concluded that "the Army intends to do as little as possible towards implementing the policy which it adopted and published.'' 145 

Roy Davenport later suggested that such pessimism was ill-founded. Other 

factors were at work within the Army in 1950, particularly after the outbreak of 

war in Korea. 146 Davenport :alluded principally to the integration of basic training centers and the assignment of greater numbers of black inductees to combat 

specialties-developments that were pushing the Army ahead of the integration 

timetable envisioned by committee members and making concern over black 

eligibility for an increased number of occupation categories less important. 

The Fahy Committee has been given full credit for proving that segregation 

could not be defended on grounds of military efficiency, thereby laying the 

foundation for the integration of the Army. But perhaps in the long run the 

group's idealism proved to be equally important. The committee never lost 

sight of the moral implications of the services' racial policies. Concern for the 

rightness and wrongness of things is readily apparent in all its deliberations, and 

in the end the committee would invoke the words of Saint Paul to the Philippians to remind men who perhaps should have needed no such reminder that 

they should heed "whatsoever things are true ... whatsoever things are just." 

What was right and just, the committee concluded, would ''strengthen the nation.'' 147 

The same ethics stood forth in the conclusion of the committee's final 

report, raising that practical summary of events to the status of an eloquent state 

paper. The committee reminded the President and its fellow citizens that the 

status of the individual, "his equal worth in the sight of God, his equal protection under the law, his equal rights and obligations of citizenship and his equal 

opportunity to make just and constructive use of his endowment-these are the 

very foundation of the American system of values.'' 148 

To its lasting honor the Fahy Committee succeeded in spelling out for the 

nation's military leaders how these principles, these "high standards of 

democracy" as President Truman called them in his order, must be applied in 

the services. 

144Prcsidcnr Truman appointed Charles Fahy to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Col· 

umbia on 15 October 1949. fahy did not assume his judicial duties, however, until 15 December after concluding his responsibilities as a member of the American delegation tO the United Nations General Assembly. 

~Memo, Kenworthy for Fahy, 25 Jul 50, Fahy Papers, Truman Library. In the memorandum the number 

of additional specialties is erroneously given as six; sec DCSPER Summary Sheet, 23 Apr 50, sub: List of 

Critical Specialties Referred tO in SR 600-629-1, G-1 291.2 (25 Oct 49). 146Ltr, Davenport to OSD Historian, 31 Aug 76, copy in CMH. For a discussion of these war-related fac· 

tors, see Chapters 14 and 17. 

147 Freedom to Serve, pp. 66-67. 148/bid., p. 67. 
CHAPTER 15 

The Role of the 

Secretary of Defense 

1949-1951 

Having ordered the integrattion of the services and supported the Fahy Committee in the development of acceptable racial programs, President Truman 

quickly turned the matter over to his subordinates in the Department of 

Defense, severing White House ties with the problem. Against the recommendations of some of his White House advisers, Truman adjourned the committee, 

leaving his executive order in effect. ''The necessary programs having been 

adopted," he told Fahy, it was time for the services "to work out in detail the 

procedures which will complete the steps so carefully initiated by the committee." 1 In effect, the President was guaranteeing the services the freedom to put 

their own houses in order. 

The issue of civil rights, however, was still of vital interest to one of the President's major constituencies. Black voters, recognized as a decisive factor in the 

November 1948 election, pressed their demands on the victorious President; in 

particular some of their spokesmen called on the administration to implement 

fully the program pur forth by the Fahy Committee. These demands were being 

echoed in Congress by a civil rights bloc- for bloc it had now become in the 

wake of the election that sent Harry Truman back to the White House. No 

longer the concern of a congressman or two, the cause of the black serviceman 

was now supported by a group of politicians who, joining with civil rights 

leaders, pressed the Department of Defense for rapid changes in its racial practices. 

The traditionalists in the armed forces also had congressional allies. In all 

probability these legislators would accept an integrated Navy because it involved 

relatively few Negroes; they might even tolerate an integrated Air Force because 

they lacked a proprietary attitude toward this new service; bur they would fight 

to keep the Army segregated because they considered the Army their own . 

2 

Congressional segregationists openly opposed changes in the Army's racial 

policy only when they thought the time was right. They carefully avoided the 

1

Lu. Truman to Fahy, 6 Jul 50. FC file . 2

1nterv, Nichols with Gcn Wade H. Haislip, 1953, in Nichols C61lcction; Telephone lntcrv, author with 

Haislip, 18 Mar 71; lmcrv, author with Martin Blumcnson, 8 Jan 68. All in CMH files. 
380 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

subject in the months following publication of the executive order, waiting to 

bargain until their support became crucial to the success of such vital military 

legislation as the renewal of the Selective Service Act and the establishment of 

universal military training. 

At most, Congress played only a minor role in the dramatic changes beginning in the armed forces. Champions of civil rights had little effect on service 

practices, although these congressmen channeled the complaints of black voters 

and kept the military traditionalists on the defensive. As for che congressional 

traditionalists, their support may have helped sustain chose on the staff who 

resisted racial change within the Army, thus slowing down that service's integration. But the demands of congressional progressives and obstructionists tended 

to cancel each other out, and in the wake of the Fahy Committee's disbandment 

the services themselves reemerged as the preeminent factor in the armed forces 

racial program. 

The services regained control by default. Logically, direction of racial 

reforms in the services should have fallen to the Secretary of Defense. In the first 

place, chc secretary, other administration officials, and the public alike had 

begun to use the secretary's office as a clearinghouse for reconciling conflicting 

demands of the services, as an appellate court reviewing decisions of the service 

secretaries, and as the natural channel of communication between the services 

and the White House, Congress, and the public. Many racial problems had 

become interservice in nature, and only the Office of the Secretary of Defense 

possessed the administrative machinery co deal with such matters. The Personnel Policy Board or, later, the new Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense 

for Manpower and Personnel might well have become the watchdog recommended by the Fahy Committee to oversee the services' progress toward integration, but neither did. 

Certainly the Secretary of Defense had other matters pressing for his attention. Secretary Johnson had become the central character in the budgetary conflicts of Truman's second term, and both he and General George C. Marshall, 

who succeeded hjm as secretary on 20 September 1950, were suddenly thrust into leadership of the Korean War. In administrative matters, at least, Marshall 

had to concentrate on boosting the morale of a department torn by internecine 

budgetary arguments. Integration did not appear to have the same importance 

to national security as these weighty matters. More to the point, Johnson and 

Marshall were not social reformers. Whatever their personal attitudes, they were 

content to let the services set the pace of racial reform. With one notable exception neither man irutiated any of the historic racial changes that took place in 

the armed forces during the early 1950's. 

For the most part those racial issues that did involve the Secretary of Defense 

centered on the status of the Negro in the armed forces in general and were extraneous tO the issue of integration. One of the most persistent status problems 

was classification by race. First posed during the great World War II draft calls, 

the question of how to determine a serviceman's race, ·and indeed the related 

one of who had the right to make such a determination, remained unanswered 
THE ROLE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, 1949-1951 381 

five years later. In August 1944 the Selective Service System decided that the 

definition of a man's race should be left to the man himself. While this solution 

no doubt pleased racial progressives and certainly simplified the induction process, not to speak of protecting the War Department from a ticklish court 

review, it still left the services the difficult and important task of designating 

racial categories into which men could be assigned. As late as April 1949 the 

Army and the Air Force listed a number of specific racial categories, one of 

which had to be chosen by the applicant or recruiter-the regulation left the 

point unclear-to identify the applicant's race. The regulation listed "white, 

Negro, Indian (referring to American Indian only), Puerto Rican, Cuban, Mexican, Hawaiian, Filipino, Chinese, East Indian, etc.," and specifically included 

mulattoes and "others of negroid race or extraction" in the Negro category, 

leaving other men of mixed race to be entered under their predominant race. 3 

The regulation was obviously subject to controversy, and in the wake of the 

President's equality order it is not surprising that some group-a g~oup of 

Spanish-speaking Americans from southern California, as it turned out- would 

raise the issue. Specifically, they objected to a practice of Army and Air Force 

recruiters, who often scratched out "white" and inserted "Mexican" in the applications of Spanish-speaking volunteers. These young men wanted to be integrated into every phase of community life, Congressman Chet Holifield told 

the Secretary of Defense, and he passed on a warning from his California constituents that ''any attempt to forestall this ambition by treating them as a group 

apart is extremely repellent to them and gives rise to demoralization and hostility.' '

4 If the Department of Defense considered racial information essential, 

Holifield continued, why not make the determination in a less objectionable 

manner? He suggested a series of questions concerning the birthplace of the applicant's parents and the language spoken in his home as innocuous 

possibilities. 

Secretary Johnson sent the congressman's complaint tO the Personnel Policy 

Board, which, ignoring the larger considerations posed by Holifield, concentrated on simplifying the department's racial categories to five-Caucasian, 

Negroid, Mongolian, Indian (American), and Malayan- and making their use 

uniform throughout the services. The board also adopted the use of inoffensive 

questions to help determine the applicant's proper race category. Obviously, the 

board could not abandon racial designations because the Army's quota system, 

still in effect, depended on this information. Less clear, however, was why the 

board failed to consider the problem of who should make the racial determination. At any rate , its new list of racial categories, approved by the secretary and 

published on 11 October, immediately drew complaints from members of the 

department. 5 

lSR 61 ~-10~-1 (AFR 39-9), 15 Apr 49. 4Ltr, Holifield to SecDcf, 10 Aug 49, SD 291.2 Negroes. 5Memo, Dep Dir, Personnel Policy Bd Staff, for Chmn, PPB, 13 Sep 49, sub: Project Summary- Change 

of Nomenclature on Enlistment Forms as Pcrtaim to "Race" Entries (M-63); Memo, Chmn, PPB, for SA et 

at., II Oct 49, sub: Policy Regarding Race Entries on Enlistment Contracts and Shipping Articles; both in PPB 

291.2. 
382 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

____ __ .... . - NAVY CORPSMAN IN KOREA attends wotmded from the 1st Marine Division, 195 0. 

The secretary's racial adviser, James C. Evans, saw no need for racial designations on departmental forms, but knowing their removal was unlikely in the 

near future, he concentrated on trying to change the newly revised categories. 

He explained to the board, obviously unschooled in the nuance of racial slurs, 

that the word "Negroid" was offensive to many Negroes. Besides, the board's 

categories made no sense since Indian (American) and Malayan were not comparable to the other three entries listed. Why not, he suggested, settle for the 

old black, white, yellow, red, and brown designations?6 

The Navy, too, objected to the board's categories. After consulting a 

Smithsonian ethnologist, the Under Secretary of the Navy suggested that the 

board create a sixth category, Polynesian, for use in shipping articles and in 

forms for reporting casualties. The Army, also troubled by the categories, requested they be defined. The categories were meant to provide a uniform basis 

for classifying military personnel, The Adjutant General pointed out, but given 

the variety and complexity of Army forms-he had discovered that the Army 

was using seven separate forms with racial entries, each with a different 

6Mcmo, Evans for Chmn, PPB, 25 Nov 49, sub: Racial Designation and Terminology. SD 291.2; Imcrv, 

author with Evans, 22 Jul 71, CMH files. 
THE ROLE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, 1949-1951 383 

procedure for deciding race-uniformity was practically impossible without a 

careful delineation of each category. 7 

Its ruling under attack from the services, the board made a hasty appeal to 

authority. Its chief of staff, Vice Adm. John L. McCrea,8 recommended that the 

Army and Navy consult Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary foe specific 

definitions of the five racial categories. That source, the admiral explained to 

the Under Secretary of the Navy, listed Polynesian in the Malayan category, and 

if the Navy decided to add race to its shipping articles, the five categories should 

be sufficient. The board, he added, had not meant to encourage additional use 

of racial information. The Navy had always used the old color categories on its 

shipping articles forms, the ones, incidentally, favored by Evans, and McCrea 

thought they generally corresponded to the categories developed by the board.9 

The admiral also suggested that the Army use the color system to help clarify the 

board's categories. He offered some generalizations on specific Army questions: 

"a) Puerto Ricans are officially Caucasian, unless of Indian or Negro birth; 

b) Filipinos are Malayan; c) Hawaiians are Malayan; d) Latin Americans are 

Caucasian or Indian; and e) Indian-Negro and White-Negro mixtures should be 

classified in accordance with the laws of the states of their birth.' '

10 The lessons 

on definition of race so painfully learned during World War II were ignored. 

Henceforth race was to be determined by a dictionary, a color scheme, and the 

legal vagaries found in the race laws of the several states. 

The board's rulings, unscientific and open to all sorts of legal complications, 

could only be stopgap measures, and when on 4 January 1950 the Army again 

requested clarification of the racial categories, the board quickly responded. 

Although it continued to defend the use of racial categories, it tried to soften 

the ruling by stating that an applicant's declaration of race should be accepted, 

subject to "sufficient justification" from the applicant when his declaration 

created "reason to doubt." It was 5 April before the board's new chairman, J. 

Thomas Schneider, 11 issued a revised directive to this effect. 12 

The board's decision to accept an applicant's declaration was simply a return 

to the reasonable and practical method the Selective Service had been using for 

some time. But adopting the vague qualification "sufficient justification" invited further complaints. When the services finally translated the board's directive into a new regulation, the role of the applicant in deciding his racial 

7Mcmo, Head. Strength and Statistics Sr. SuPers, for Head. Policy Control Sr. SuPers, 27 Oct 49. sub: 

Policy Regarding Race Entries, Pers 25-EL. BuPcrsRccs; Memo, Under SccNav for Chmn, PPB, 25 Nov 49. 

sub: Policy Regarding "Race" Entries on EnlisJmcm Contracts and Shipping Articles, GenRecsNav; OF, 

DIP&/\ to TAG, 18 Oct 49. same sub, with CMT 2. TAG to D/P&A. 2 Nov 49. copy in i\G 291.2 (11 Oct 

49). 8 Admiral McCrea succeeded General Lanham as director of rhe board's staff in 1949. 

9Mcmo, Dir. PPB Staff, for Under SccNav, 7 Dec 49. sub: Policy Regarding "Race" Emrics on Enlistment 

ComractS and Shipping Articles, PPB 291. 2. 

101dem for Administrative Asst to SA. 8 Dec 49. sub: Policy Regarding "Race" Entries on Enlisrment 

Contracts and Shipping Articles, OSA 291.2. 11Schneidcr succeeded Thomas Reid as chairman on 2 February 1950. 12

Mcmo, Chmn, PPB. for SA ct al., 5 Apr 50, sub: Polity Rcgardjng ''Race'' on Enlistment ContractS and 

Shipping Articles. PPB 291.2. 
384 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

identity was practically abolished. In the Army and the Air Force, for example, 

recruiters had to submit all unresolved identity cases to the highest local commander, whose decision, supposedly based on available documentary evidence 

and answers to the questions first suggested by Congressman Holifield, was 

final. Further, the Army and the Air Force decided that "no enlistment would 

be accomplished'' until racial identity was decided to the satisfaction of both 

the applicant and the service. 13 The Navy adopted a similar procedure when it 

placed the board's directive in effect. ~ The new regulation promised little comfort for young Americans of racially mixed parentage and even less for the services. Contrary to the intent of the Personnel Policy Board, its directive once 

again placed the burden of deciding an applicant's race, with the concomitant 

complaints and potential civil suits, back on the services. 

At the time the Army did not see this responsibility as a burden and in its 

quest for uniformity was willing to assume an even greater share of the decisionmaking in a potentially explosive issue. On 7 August the Deputy Assistant Chief 

of Staff, G-1, asked the Personnel Policy Board to include Army induction 

centers in the directive meant originally for recruiting centers only. ~ In effect 

the Army was offering to assume from Selective Service the task of deciding the 

race of all draftees. The board obtained the necessary agreement from Maj. Gen. 

Lewis B. Hershey, and Selective Service was thus relieved of an onerous task 

reluctantly acquired in 1944. On 29 August 1950 The Adjutant General ordered 

induction stations to begin entering the draftee's race in the records. 16 

The considerable staff activity devoted to definitions of race between 1949 

and 1951 added very little to racial harmony or the cause of integration. The 

simplified racial categories and the regulations determining their application 

continued to irritate members of America's several minority groups. The ink was 

hardly dry on the new regulation, for example, before the director of the 

NAACP's Washington bureau was complaining to Secretary of the Air Force 

Thomas K. Finletter that the department's five categories were comparatively 

meaningless and caused unnecessary humiliation for inductees. He wanted 

racial entries eliminated. 17 Finletter explained that racial designations were not 

used for assignment or administrative purposes but solely for evaluating the integration program and answering questions from the public. His explanation 

prompted much discussion within the services and correspondence between 

them and Clarence Mitchell and Walter White of the NAACP. It culminated in 

13SR 615-105-1 (AFR 39-9), 6 Sep 50. 1

4BuPers Cir Lrr 84-50, I Jun 50. 

!)Memo, Dep Asst CS/G-1 for Dep Dir of Staff, Mil Pcrs, PPB, 7 Aug 50, sub: "Race" Entries on Indue· 

tion Records, PPB 291.2. The Director, Personnel and Administration, was redesignated the Assistant Chief of 

Staff, G-1, in the 1950 reorganization of the Army staff; sec Hewes, From Root to McNamara. 

16Memo, Dir, PPB Staff, for Dcp ACS, G-1, 29 Aug 50, sub: "Race" Entries on Induction Records, PPB 

291.2 (27 Aug 50); Mc'mo, Chief, Class and Standards Br, G-1, for TAG. 6Sep 50, same sub, G-1 291.2 (II 

Ocr 49); Ltr, Dir, Selective Service, to Actg Dir of Producrjon Management, Munitions Bd, 27 Nov 50, copy in 

G-1 291.2; G-1 Memo for Red, attached to G-1 DF to TAG, 28 Dec 50, same sub, G-1 291.2 (II Oct 50} . 17Ltr, Clarence Mitchell to SccAF Thomas K. Finlencr, 13 Dec 50, SccAF files. Finlctter had become 

secrerary on 24 April 1950. 
THE ROLE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, 1949-1951 385 

a meeting of the service secretaries with the Secretary of Defense on 16 January 

1951 at which Finletter reaffirmed his position. 18 

There was some justification for the Defense Department's position. Many 

of those who found racial designations distasteful also demanded hard statistical 

proof that members of minority groups were given equal treatment and opportunity, 19 and such assurances, of course, demanded racial determinations on 

the records. Still, not all the reasons for retaining the racial identification entry 

were so defensible. The Army, for example, had to maintain accurate statistics 

on the number of Negroes inducted because of its concern with a possible unacceptable rise in their number and the President's promise to reimpose the quota 

to prevent such an increase. Whatever the reasons, it was obvious that racial 

statistics had to be kept. It was also obvious that as long as they were kept and 

continued to matter, the Secretary of Defense would be saddled with the task of 

deciding in the end which racial tag to attach to each man in the armed forces. It 

was an unenviable duty, and it could be performed with neither precision nor 

justice. 

Overseas Restrictions 

Another problem involving the Secretary of Defense concerned restrictions 

placed on the use of black servicemen in certain foreign areas. The problem was 

not new. Making a distinction in cases where American troops were stationed in 

a country at the request of the United States government, the services excluded 

black troops from assignment in some Allied countries during and immediately 

after World War 11 .

20 The Army, for example, barred the assignment of black 

units to China (the Chinese government did not object to assignment of individual black soldiers up to 15 percent of any unit's strength), and the Navy 

removed black messmen from stations in Iceland. 21 Although these restrictions 

did not improve the racial image of the services, they were only a minor inconvenience to military officials since Negroes were for the most part segregated and 

their placement could be controlled easily. The armed forces continued to exclude black servicemen from certain countries into 1949 under what the Personnel Policy Board called "operating agreements (probably not in writing)" with 

the State Department. 22 But the situation changed radically when some of the 

services started to integrate. Efficient administration then demanded that black 

18Lrr, SccAF to Mitchell, Dir, Washington Bureau, NAACP, 3 Jan 51. and Lu, Mitchell to Am SccAF. 8 

jan 51, both in SccAF files: Memo, Edward T. Dickinson, Assr to Joint Sccys, OSD, for SA et al. , I 7 jan 51 , 

OSDfiles. 

19Memo, Dep Asst SccAF (Program Management) for SecAF, 18 jan 51, SecAF files: Memo, Col Robin B. 

Pape, Asst to Dir, PPB Staff, for Chmn, PPB, 4 May 51. sub: Racial Emries on Enlistment Records, PPB 

291.2. 20Memo, Secy, Cmte on Negro Policies, for ASW, 26 Sep 42. sub: Digest of War Department Policy Per· 

taining to Negro Military Personnel, ASW 291.2 Negro Troops . . 21 Msg, CG, China Theater, to War Departmem, 16 Mar 46, G- 1 291.2 (I Jan-31 Mar 46): Memo Vice 

CNO for Chief of NavPcrs, I Jul 42, sub: Colored Personnel on Duty in lccland-Rcplaccmcnr of, P-14, 

GcnRecsNav. 22Mcmo, Thomas R. Reid for Najeeb Halaby, Dir, Office of Foreign Military Affairs, OSD, 7 Jul49, sub: 

Foreign Assignments of Negro Personnel, PPB 291 .2 (7 jul49). 
386 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

servicemen be interchanged freely among the various duty stations. Even in the 

case of the still segregated Army the exclusion of Negroes from certain commands further complicated the chronic maldistribution of black soldiers 

throughout the service. 

The interservice and departmental aspects of the problem involved Secretary 

of Defense Johnson. Following promulgation of his directive on racial equality 

and at the instigation of his Personnel Policy Board and his assistant, Najeeb 

Halaby, Johnson asked the Secretary of State for a formal expression of views on 

the use of black troops in a lengthy list of countries. 23 Such an expression was 

clearly necessary, as Air Force spokesmen pointed out. Informed of the consultations, Assistant Secretary Zuckert asked that an interim policy be formulated, so 

urgent had the problem become in the Air Force where new racial policies and 

assignments were under way. 24 

For his part the Secretary of State had no objection to stationing Negroes in 

any of the listed countries. In fact, Under Secretary James E. Webb assured 

Johnson, the State Department welcomed the new Defense Department policy 

of equal treatment and opportunity as a step toward the achievement of the nation's foreign policy objectives. At the same time Webb admitted that there 

were certain countries-he listed specifically Iceland, Greenland, Canada, Newfoundland, Bermuda, and British possessions in the Caribbean- where local attitudes might affect the morale of black troops and their relations with the inhabitants. The State Department, therefore , preferred advance warning when 

the services planned to assign Negroes to these countries so that it might consult 

the host governments and reduce "possible complications" to a minimum.

25 

This policy definition did not end the matter. In the first place the State 

Department decided not to restrict its list of excepted areas to the six mentioned. While it had no objection to the assignment of individual Negroes or 

nonsegregated units to Panama, the department informally advised the Army in 

December 1949, it did interpose grave objections to the assignment of black 

units. 26 Accordingly, only individual Negroes were assigned to temporary units 

in the Panama Command. 27 

Yet for several reasons, the services were uneasy about the situation. The 

Director of Marine Corps Personnel , for example, feared that since in the bulk 

reassignment of marines enlisted men were transferred by rank and military occupational specialties only, a black marine might be assigned to an excepted 

area by oversight. Yet th~ corps was reluctant to change the system. 28 An Air 

23Lrr. SecDcf to Secy of Srare. 14 Scp 49. CD 30-1-4. SecDef files. 24Memo, Asst SecAF for Chmn, PPB, 16 Scp 49, sub: Assignment of Negroes to Overseas Areas; Memo. 

Dir of Staff, PPB. for Am SccAF. 28 Scp 49. same sub; Memo. Asst SecAF for Chmn, PPB. 12 Oct 49. same 

sub. All in SccAF files. 25Ltr, James E. Webb to louis Johnson, 17 Oct 49; Memo. SecDcf for SA et al .. 27 Oct 49; both in CD 

30-1-4. SccDcffilcs. 26DF, DIP A to D/OT. I Mar 50. sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower; l tr, D/PA for Maj Gen Ray E. 

Porter. CG. USA CARIB, 9 Feb 50; both in CSGPA 291.2. 27G-J Summary Sheet, 12 Apr 50, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, CSGPA 291.2 . 28Mcmo. Dirof Personnel, USMC. for Dir. Div of Plans and Policies, 22 Dec 49, Hist Div, HQMC. 
THE ROLE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, 1949-1951 387 

Force objection was more pointed. General Edwards worried that the restrictions 

were becoming public knowledge and would probably cause adverse criticism of 

the Air Force. He wanted the State Department to negotiate with the countries 

concerned to lift the restrictions or at least to establish a clear-cut, defensible 

policy. Secret~ry Symington discussed the matter with Secretary of Defense 

Johnson, and Halaby, knowing Deputy Under Secretary of State Dean Rusk's 

particular interest in having men assigned without regard to race, agreed to take 

the matter up with Rusk. 29 Secretary of the Navy Francis P. Matthews reminded 

Johnson that black servicemen already numbered among the thousands of Navy 

men assigned to four of the six areas mentioned, and if the system continued 

these men would periodically and routinely be replaced with other black sailors. 

Should the Navy, he wanted to know, withdraw these Negroes? Given the 

"possible unfavorable reaction" to their withdrawal, the Navy wanted to keep 

Negroes in these areas in approximately their present numbers. 30 Both the Fahy 

Committee and the Personnel Policy Board made it clear that they too wanted 

black servicemen retained wherever they were currently assigned. 31 

Maj. Gen. James H. Burns, Secretary Johnson's assistant for foreign military 

affairs, put the matter to the State Department, and James Evans followed up 

by discussing it with Rusk. Reassured by these consultations, Secretary Johnson 

issued a more definitive policy statement for the services on 5 April explaining 

that ''the Department of State endorses the policy of freely assigning Negro personnel or Negro or non-segregated units to any part of the world to which US 

forces are sent; it is prepared to support the desires of the Department of 

Defense in this respect. " 32 Nevertheless, since certain governments had from 

time to time indicated an unwillingness to accept black servicemen, Johnson 

directed the services to inform him in advance when black troops were to be 

dispatched to countries where no blacks were then stationed so that host countries might be consulted. This new statement produced immediate reaction in 

the services. Citing a change in policy, the Air Force issued directives opening all 

overseas assignments except Iceland to Negroes. After an extended discussion on 

the assignment of black troops to the Trieste (TRUST) area, the Army followed 

suit. 33 

Yet the problem refused to go away, largely because the services continued 

to limit foreign assignment of black personnel, particularly in attache offices, 

military assistance advisory groups, and military missions. The Army's G-3, for 

2

9Mcmo. Dcp CS/Pcrs for SecAF, 28 Dec 49; Memo, Clarence H. Osthagen, Asst to SccAF, for Asst 

SecAF. 6 Jan 50; Red of Telccon, Halaby with Zuckcrt, 10 Jan 50. All in SccAF files. 

3°Mcmo, SecNav for SecDcf. 3 Jan 50. sub: Foreign Assignment of Negro Personnel, CD 30-1-4. Sec De£ 

fi les. 

31Mcmo, NEH (Halaby) for Maj Gcn J.H. Burns, 10 Feb 50, attached tO Ltr, Burns tO Rusk. 13 Feb 50, CD 

30-1-4, SccDef files. 

32Mcmo, SecDef for SA et al., 5 Apr 50, sub: Foreign Assignment of Negro Personnel; Ltr, Dean Rusk to 

Maj Gen Burns, 1 Mar 50; Memo, Burns for SecDcf, 3 Apr 50. All in CD 30-1-4, SecDcf fi les. 33DF, ACS, G-1, for CSA, 3 Dec 52, sub: Restricted Distribution of Negro Personnel; ibid., 30 Mar 53. 

sub: Assignmcnc of Negro Personnel to TRUST; both in CS 291.2 Negroes. Sec also Memo, ACS, G-1, for 

TAG, 24 Apr 53. sub: Assignment of Negro Personnel, AG 291 .2 (13 Apr 53); Memo, ASecAF for SecDcf, 28 

Apr 50. sub: Foreign Assignment of Negro 'Personnel, CD 30-1-4, SecDcf files. 
388 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

25TH DIVISION TROOPS UNLOAD TRUCKS AND EQUIPMENT at Sasebo Railway Station, japan, for transport to Korea, 1950. 

example, concluded in 1949 that, while the race of an individual was not a factor in determining eligibility for a mission assignment, the attitude of certain 

countries (he was referring to certain Latin American countries) made it advisable to inform the host country of the race of the prospective applicant. For a 

host country to reject a Negro was undesirable, he concluded, but for a Negro to 

be assigned to a country that did not welcome him would be embarrassing to 

both countries. 34 When the chief of the military mission in Turkey asked the 

Army staff in 1951 to reconsider assigning black soldiers to Turkey because of 

the attitude of the Turks, the Army canceled the assignment. 3) 

Undoubtedly certain countries objected to the assignment of American servicemen on grounds of race or religion, but there were also indications that 

racial restrictions were not always made at the behest of the host country. 36 In 

195 7 Congressman Adam Clayton Powell protested that Negroes were not being 

34G-3 Summary Sheer, 15 Nov 49. sub: Assignment of Negro Personnel, G - 3 291.2. 

3~Msg, Chief, JAMMAT, Ankara, Turkey, ro DA. personal for the G - 1, 14 Apr 51; Ltr, Brig Gen W. E. Dunkel berg to Maj Gen William H. Arnold, Chief, JAMMAT, 24 Apr 51; idem w Brig Gcn John B. Murphy, 

G- 1 Sec, EUCOM, 24 Apr 51. All in G-1 291.2. 

36Jack G reenberg, Race Relatiom tmd Americn11 Law (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959). pp. 

359-60. 
THE ROLE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, 1949-1951 389 

assigned to the offices of attaches, military assistance advisory groups, and 

military missions. 37 In particular he was concerned with Ethiopia, whose 

emperor had personally assured him that his government had no race restrictions. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army admitted that Negroes were 

barred from Ethiopia, and although documentary evidence could not be produced, the ban was thought to have been imposed at the request of the United 

Nations. The State Department claimed it was unaware of any such ban, nor 

could it find documentation to support the Army's contention. It objected 

neither to the assignment of individual Negroes to attache and advisory offices 

in Ethiopia nor to "most" other countries. 38 Having received these assurances, 

the Department of Defense informed the services that ''it was considered appropriate'' to assign black servicemen to the posts discussed by Congressman 

Powell. 

39 For some time, however, the notion persisted in the Department of 

Defense that black troops should not be assigned to Ethiopia.40 In fact, restrictions and reports of restrictions against the assignment of Americans to a 

number of overseas posts on grounds of race or religion persisted into the 

1970's.41 

Congressional Concerns 

Congress was slow to see that changes were gradually transforming the 

armed services. In its special preelection session, the Eightieth Congress ignored 

the recently issued Truman order on racial equality just as it ignored the President's admonition to enact a general civil rights program. But when the new 

Eighty-first Congress met in January 1949 the subjects of armed forces integration, the Truman order, and the Fahy Committee all began to receive attention. 

Debate on race in the services occurred frequently in both houses. Each side appealed to constitutional and legal principles to support its case, but the discussions might well have remained a philosophical debate if the draft law had not 

come up for renewal in 1950. The debate focused mostly on an amendment proposed by Senator Richard B. Russell of Georgia that would allow inductees and 

enlistees, upon their written declaration of intent, to serve in a unit manned exclusively by members of their own race. Russell had made this proposal once 

before, but because it seemed of little consequence to the still largely segregated 

services of 1948 it was ignored. Now in the wake of the executive order and the 

Fahy Committee Report, the amendment came to sudden prominence. And 

when Russell succeeded in discharging the draft bill with his amendment from 

the Senate Armed Forces Committee with the members' unanimous approval, 

37Memo, Dcp ASA for ASD/ISA, 6 Feb 57, sub: Racial Assignment Rcsrrictions, OSA 291.2 Ethiopia. 38Ltr, Dcp Asst Si:cy of State for Personnel ro Dep ASD (MP&R), 24 May 57, OASD (MP&R) 291.2. 

3

9Memo, Dep ASD for ASA (MP&R) et al., 24 Jun 57, ASD (MP&R) 291.2. 40Mcmo, James C. Evans for Paul Hopper. !SA, 29 Oct 58; Memo for Red, Exec to Civilian Asst, OSD, 21 

Jan 60, sub: MAAG's and Missions, copies of both in CMI-1. 

41Sce AFM 35-11L, Appendix M, 14 Dec 60, sub: Assignment Resrrictions; Memo, USMC IG for Dir of 

Pets, MC, 31 Aug 62, slib: Problem Area at Marine Barracks, Argcntia, 1-Iisr Div, 1-IQMC. See also New York 

Times, December 5, 1959 and November 16, 17, and 18, 1971. 
390 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

civil rights supporters quickly jumped to the attack. Even before the bill was formally introduced on the floor, Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon told his colleagues that the Russell amendment conflicted with the stated policy of the administration as well as with sound Republican principles. He cited the waste of 

manpower the amendment would bring about and reminded his colleagues of 

the international criticism the armed forces had endured in the past because of 

undemocratic social practices.42 

When debate began on the amendment, Senator Leverett Saltonstall of 

Massachusetts was one of the first to rise in opposition. While confessing sympathy for the states' rights philosophy that recognized the different customs of 

various sections of the nation, he branded the Russell amendment unnecessary, 

provocative, and unworkable, and suggested Congress leave the services alone in 

this matter. To support his views he read into the record portions of the Fahy 

Committee Report, which represented, he emphasized, the judgment of impartial civilians appointed by the President, another civilian.43 

Discussion of the Russell amendment continued with opponents and 

defenders raising the issues of military efficiency, legality, and principles of 

equality and states' rights. In the end the amendment was defeated 45 to 27 

with 24 not voting, a close vote if one considers that the ll:bstentions could have 

changed the outcome. 44 A similar amendment, this time introduced by Congressman Arthur Winstead of Mississippi, was also defeated in 1951. 

The Russell amendment was the high point of the congressional fight 

against armed forces integraltion. During the next year the integrationists took 

their turn, their barrage of questions and demands aimed at obtaining from the 

Secretary of Defense additional reforms in the services. On balance, these congressmen were no more effective than the segregationists. Secretary Johnson had 

obviously adopted a hands-off policy on integration. 45 Certainly he openly 

discouraged further public and congressional investigations of the department's 

racial practices. When the Committee Against Jim Crow sought to investigate 

racial conditions in the European Command in December 1949. Johnson told 

A. Philip Randolph and Grant Reynolds that he could not provide them with 

military transport, and he closed the discussion by referring the civil rights 

leaders to the Army's new special regulation on equal opportunity published 

in January 1950.46 

Co greJJ nal Record, 81st Cong .. 2d scss., vol. 96. p. 84 12. 43 Ibid .. pp. 8973. 9073. 

Ibid., p. 9074: see also Memo, Rear Adm H. A. Houser, OSD Legis li:tison, for ASD Rosenberg. 17 Mar 

51. sub: Winstead Ami-nonscgrcg:uion Amendment, SD 291 .2. 

~Sce Lrrs. Rep. Kenneth B. Keating w Johnson. 19 Dec 49; SecDcf to Keating. 20 Jan 50; idem to Hubert 

H. Humphrey, 24 Mar 50: Humphrey to SccDd, 28 feb 50: Rep. Jacob Javits 10 Johnson. 22 Dec 49: Draft 

Lu. SecDd to Javits. 16 Jau 50 (not scm): Memos, Leva for Johnson. 12 and 17 Jan 50. All in SD 291.2 

Negroes. 46Lus. Johnson to Reynolds, 23 Dec 49; Reynolds to Johnson. 13 Jan 50; Reynolds and Randolph to 

Johnson. 15 Jao 50; Johnson to Reynolds and Randolph. 6 Feb 50. The Committee Against Jim Crow was particularly upset with Johnson's assistanls. Leva and Evans; sec Ltrs. Reynolds to Johnson. 1<) Dec 49; leva to 

Niles. 7 feb 50: Reynolds w Evans. 13 jan 50. All in SD 291.2. 
THE ROLE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, 1949-1951 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY ROSENBERG talks with men of the 140th Medium Tank Battalion during a Far East tour. 

391 

Johnson employed much the same technique when Congressman Jacob K. 

Javits of New York, who with several other legislators had become interested in 

the joint congressional-citizen commission proposed by the Committee Against 

Jim Crow, introduced a resolution in the House calLing for a complete investigation into the racial practices and policies of the services by a select House committee.17 Johnson tried to convince Chairman Adolph J. Sabath of the House 

Committee on Rules that the new service policies promised equal treatment and 

opportunity, again using the new Army regulation to demonstrate how these 

policies were being implemented.48 Once more he succeeded in diverting the 

integrationists. The Javits resolution came to naught, and although that congressman still harbored some reservations on racial progress in the Army, he 

nevertheless reprinted an article from Our World magazine in the Congressional 

Record in April 1950 that outlined "the very good progress" being made by the 

.iJLtr, Javits to Johnson, 22 Dec 49: Press Release, Jacob K. Javits, 12 Jan 50; Ltr, Javits to Johns9n, 24 Jan 

50. Other lcgislawrs expressed interest in the joint commission idea: see Ltrs. Saltonstall 10 Johnson. II Jan 

50; Sen. William Langer m Johnson, 29 Ocr 49: Henry C. Lodge to Johnson, 30 Nov 49. All in SD 291.2. Sec 

also Lrr. Javits to author, with auachmcnts. 28 Ocr 71, CMH files. 18Ltr. SccDcf 10 Chmn. Cmtc on Rules, 21 Mar 50. SD 291.2 (21 Mar 50). 
392 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Secretary of Defense in the racial field .

49 Javits would have no reason to suspect, 

but the' 'very good progress'' he spoke of had not issued from the secretary's office. For all practical purposes, Johnson's involvement in civil rights in the 

armed forces ended with his battle with the Fahy Committee. Certainly in the 

months after the committee was disbanded he did nothing to push for integration and allowed the subject of civil rights to languish. 

Departmental interest in racial affairs quickened noticeably when General 

Marshall, Johnson's successor, appointed the brilliant labor relations and manpower expert Anna M. Rosenberg as the first Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Manpower and PersonneP0 Rosenberg had served on both the Manpower Consulting Committee of the Army and Navy Munitions Board and the War Manpower Commission and toward the end of the war in the European theater as a 

consultant to General Eisenhower, who recommended her to Marshall for the 

new position. 51 She was encouraged by the secretary to take independent control 

of the department's manpower affairs, including racial matters. 5

2 That she was 

well acquainted with integration leaders and sympathetic to their objectives is 

attested by her correspondence with them. "Dear Anna," Senator Hubert H. 

Humphrey wrote in March 1951, voicing confidence in her attitude toward 

segregation, " I know I speak for many in the Senate when I say that your 

presence with the Department of Defense is most reassuring. " 53 

Still, to bring about effective integration of the services would take more 

than a positive attitude, an.d Rosenberg faced a delicate situation. She had to 

reassure integrationists that the new racial policy would be enforced by urging 

the sometimes reluctant services to take further steps toward eliminating 

discrimination. At the same time she had to promote integration and avoid provoking the segregationists in Congress to retaliate by blocking other defense 

legislation. The bill for universal military training was especially important to 

the department and to push for its passage was her primary assignment. It is not 

surprising, therefore, that she accomplished little in the way of specific racial 

reform during the first year of the Korean War. 

Secretary Rosenberg took it upon herself to meet with legislators interested 

in civil rights to outline the department's current progress and future plans for 

guaranteeing equal treatment for black servicemen. She also arranged for her 

assistants and Brig. Gen. B. M. McFayden, the Army's Deputy G-1, to brief officials of the various civil rights organizations on the same subject. 54 She had 

'

19Co11gressio11dl Record. 81st Cong .. 2d scss .. pp. A3267- 68; Memo, Leva for Johnson, 9 May 50; Ltr, 

Johnson to Javits, 18 May 50; both in SecDcf files. Sec also Ltr, Javits to author, 28 Oct 71. 

5°Carl W. Borklund, Men of the Pe11tago11 (New York: Praeger, 1966), pp. 121 - 24; Ltr, Anna Rosenberg 

Hoffman to author, 23 Scp 71; lntcrv. author with James C. Evans. 13 Scp 71; both in CMH files. 

5 1

1mmediately before her appointment as the manpower assistant, Rosenberg was a public membcr·of the 

Committee on Mobilizati.on Policy of the National Security Resources Board and a special consultant on man· 

power problems to the chairman of the board, Stuart Symington. 

HJnterv, author with Davenport. 17 Oct 71. 

Bttr, Humphrey to Rosenberg, 7 Mar) I, SD 291.2. 

Sce Memo for Red. Maj M. 0 . Becker, G- 1, 13 Mar) I, G- I 291.2; Ltrs. Granger to Leva, 25 Jan 51. 

Leva to Granger. 13 Feb 51. Clarence Mirchcll. NAACP, to Rosenberg, 26 Mar )I, lasi three in SD 291.2. 

Legislators ancnding these briefings included Senators Lehman, William Benton of Connecticut, Humphrey, 

John Pasrore of Rhode Island, and KilgQrc. 
THE ROLE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, 1949-1951 393 

congressional complaints and proposals speedily investigated, and demanded 

from the services periodic progress reports which she issued to legislators who 

backed civil rights.)) 

Rosenberg and her departmental colleagues were less forthcoming in some 

other areas of civil rights. Reflecting a desire to placate segregationist forces in 

Congress, they did little, for example, to promote federal protection of servicemen in cases of racial violence outside the military reservation. The NAACP 

had been urging the passage of such legislation for many years, and in March 

1951 Clarence Mitchell called Rosenberg's attention to the mistreatment of 

black servicemen and their families suffered at the hands of policemen and 

civilians in communities surrounding some military bases. 56 At times, Walter 

White charged, these humiliations and abuses by civilians were condoned by 

military police. He warned that such treatment "can only succeed in adversely 

affecting the morale of Negro troops . . . and hamper effons to secure 

fullhearted support of the American Negro for the Government's military and 

foreign policy program.' ')7 

The civil rights leaders had at least some congressional support for their demand. Congressman Abraham J. Multer of New York called on the Armed Services Committee to include in the 1950 extension of the Selective Service Act an 

amendment making attacks on uniformed men and women and discrimination 

against them by public officials and in public places of recreation and interstate 

travel federal offenses. 58 Focusing on a different aspect of the problem, Senator 

Humphrey introduced an amendment to the Senate version of the bill to protect 

servicemen detained by public authority against civil violence or punishment by 

extra legal forces. Both amendments were tabled before final vote on the bill. 59 

The matter came up again in the next Congress when Senator Herbert H. 

Lehman of New York offered a similar amendment to the universal military 

training bill. 6

° Commenting for his department, Secretary Marshall admitted 

that defense officials had been supporting such legislation since 1943 when 

Stimson asked for help in protecting servicemen in the civilian community. But 

Marshall was against linking the measure to the training bill, which, he explained to Congressman Franck R. Havenner of California, was of such fundamental importance that its passage should not be endangered by consideration of extraneous issues. He wanted the problem of federal protection considered as a separate piece of legislation. 61 

55 Sec Lees, Humphrey to Rosenberg, 10 Mar H; Rosenberg to Humphrey. 26 Mar 51; Javics co SecDcf, 10 

Mar 51; Marshall co Javics. 30 Mar 51 ; Memo, Leva for Rosenberg. 23 Mar 51; Lm, Rosenberg to Douglas, 

Humphrey. Bemon, Kilgore, Lehman, and Javics, 26 Jun 51; Memo, Rosenberg for SA. 16 May 51. sub: 

Private Lionel E. Bolin. All in SD 291.2. See also OF, ACS. G-1, to CSA, 6 Apr 51. sub: Summary of Ad· 

vances in Utilization of Negro Manpower, CS 291.2 Negroes. 

5

6Ltr, Mitchell co Rosenberg, 26 Mar 51, SO 291.2. 57Telgs. Whice to Marshall and SA, 9 Jan 51, copy in SD 291.2 . 

5

8

Congressional Record, 81sr Cong .. 2d sess .. vol. 96, p. A888. 

59Ibid .. p. 904. For the Army's opposition ro these proposals, see Memo ACofS, G-1, for CofS, 12 Apr 

50, sub: Department of che Army Policies re Segregation and Utilization of Negro Manpower, G- 1 291.2 (5 

Apr 50). 60Memo for Red. Maj M. 0. Becker. G-1. 13 Mar 51, G-1 291.2. 

61Ltr, SecDcf to Havenner, 27 Mar 51 , SecDeffiles. 
394 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

But evidently not just yet, for when the NAACP's Mitchell, referring to 

Marshall's letter to Congressman Havenner, asked Rosenberg to press for 

separate legislation, he was told that since final congressional action was still 

pending on the universal military training and reserve programs it was not an 

auspicious moment for action on a federal protection bill.62 The department's 

reluctance to act in the matter obviously involved more than concern with the 

fare of universal military training. Summing up department policy on 1 June, 

the day after the training bill passed the House, Rosenberg explained that the 

Department of Defense would not itself propose any legislation to extend to servicemen the protection afforded "civilian employees" of the federal government but would support such a proposal if it came from "any other source. " 63 

This limitation was further defined by Rosenberg's colleagues in the Defense 

Department. On 19 June the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legal and 

Legislative Affairs, Daniel K. Edwards, rejected Mitchell's request for help in 

preparing the language of a bill to protect black servicemen. Mitchell had explained that discussions with congressional leaders convinced the NAACP that 

chances for such legislation were favorable. but the Defense Department's Assistant General Counsel declared the department did nor ordinarily act "as a drafring service for outside agencies.' '

64 In fact, effective legislation to protect servicemen off military bases was more than a decade away. 

Despite her concern over possible congressional opposition, Rosenberg 

achieved one important reform during her first year in office. For years the 

Army's demand for a parity of enlistment standards had been opposed by the 

Navy and the Air Force and had once been rejected by Secretary Forrestal. Now 

Rosenberg was able to convince Marshall and the armed services committees that 

in rimes of manpower shortages the services suffered a serious imbalance when 

each failed to get irs fair share of recruits from the various so-called mental 

categories. ~ Her assistant, Ralph P. Sollat, prepared a program for her incorporating Roy K. Davenport's specific suggestions. The program would allow 

volunteer enlisrmencs to continue bur would require all the services to give a 

uniform entrance test to both volunteers and draftees. (Actually, ra ther than 

develop a completely new entrance rest, the other services eventua ll y adopted 

the Army's, which was renamed the Armed Forces Qualification Test.) Sollat 

also devised an arrangement whereby each service had to recruit men in each of 

the four mental categories in accordance with an established quota. Manpower 

experts agreed that this program offered the best chance to distribute manpower 

equally among the services. Approved by Secretary Marshall on 10 April 1951 

under the title Qualitative Distribution of Military Manpower Program, it 

quickly changed the intellectual composition of the services by obliging the 

Navy and Air Force to share responsibility with the Army for the training and 

62Ltr, Mitchell to Rosenberg. 16 Apr 51: Ltr. Rosenberg to Mitchell. 9 May 51 ; borh in SO 291 .2. 63Mcmo, ASD (MP&R) for ASD (Legal and Legis Affairs). 14 Jun 5 1, SO 29 1 .1; PL 51 , 82d Congress. 64Ltr, Mitch.cll, Dir, Washington Br, NAACP, to Dir of Industrial Relations. DOD. 25 May 51 ; Ltr. ASD 

(Legal and Legis Affairs) to Mitchell. 19 Jun 51; Memo. A sst Gen Counsel. OSD. for ASD (Legal and Legis Affair~ . 19 Jun 51. All in SO 291.2. 

5Ltr, Anna Rosenberg Hoffman to author. 23 Scp 71. 
THE ROLE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, 1949-1951 395 

employment of less gifted inductees. For the remainder of the Korean War, for 

example, each of the services, not just the Army, had to take 24 percent of its 

new recruits from category IV, the low-scoring group. This figure was later 

reduced co 18 percent and fina lly in 1958 co 12 percent. 66 

The Navy and the Air Force had always insisted their high minimum entrance requirements were designed co maintain the good quality of their recruits 

and had nothing to do with race. Roy Davenport believed otherwise and read 

into their standards an intent to exclude all but a few Negroes. Rosenberg saw in 

the new qualitative distribution program not only the chance to upgrade the 

Army but also a way of "making sure that the other Services had their proper 

share of Negroes.' '

67 Because so many Negroes scored below average in achievement tests and therefore made up a large percentage of the men in category IV, 

the new program served Rosenberg's double purpose. Even after discounting 

the influence of other factors, statistics suggest that the imposition of the 

qualitative distribution program operated just as Rosenberg and the Fahy Committee before her had predicted. (Table 3) 

TABLE 3-PERCENTAGEOF BLACK ENLISTED MEN AND W OMEN 

Sc:rvice I July 1949 I July 19)4 

------------------------+------------4---- Army ........ ... ... ... ......... . 

Navy .. . ..... ..... . . .•.. •.. . ...........• 

Air l'orce .......... ...•.. •.. •. . • . . •...... 

Marine Corps .. . .... . ............ .. ..... . 

12.4 13.7 

4.7 3.6 

1 8.6 

2.1 6.) 

Source: Memo for Red. ASO/M, 12 Sep ~6 . sub: Integration Percentages, ASO(M) 291.2. 

I July 19)6 

12.8 

6.3 

10.4 

6.) 

The program had yet another consequence: it destroyed the Army's best 

argument for the reimposition of the racial quota. Upset over the steadily rising 

number of black enlistments in the early months of the Korean War, the Army's 

G-1 had pressed Secretary Pace in October 1950, and again five months later 

with G-3 concurrence, to reinstate a ceiling on black enlistments. Assistant 

Secretary Earl D. Johnson returned the request "without action," noting that 

the new qualitative distribution program would produce a "more equitable" 

solucion.68 The President's agreement with Secretary Gray about reimposing a 

quota notwithstanding, it was highly unlikely that the Army could have done so 

without returning to the White House for permission, and when in May 1951 

the Army staff renewed its demand, Pace considered asking the White House 

for a quota on Negroes in category IV. After consulting with Rosenberg on the 

long-term effects of qualitative distribution of manpower, however, Pace agreed 

to drop the matter.69 

66BuPers Study, Pers A 1224 (probably Jan 59), GcnRecsNav. 

671ntcrv, author with Davenport, 17 Oct 71; and Ltr, Anna Rosenberg Hoffman to author, 23 Sep 71. 68G-I Summary Sheet with incl. 13 Mar 51, sub: Negro Strength in the Army; Memo, ASA for CofS, 13 

Apr 51, same sub; both in CS 291.2 Negroes (13 Mar 51). 69Mcmo, Actg CofS for SA, 31 May 51, sub: Present Ovcrstrength in Segrcgarcd Units; G- 1 Summary 

Sheet for CofS. 26 May 51, same sub; Draft Memo. Frank Pace, Jr., for President; Memo, ASA for SA, I Jul 

51. All inG-1 291.2 (26 May 51). 
396 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Executive Order 9981 passed its third .anniversary in July 1951 with little 

having happened in the Office of the Secretary of Defense to lift the heartS of 

the champions of integration. The race issues with which the Secretary of 

Defense concerned himself in these years- the definicion of race, the status of 

black servicemen overseas, even the parity of enlistment standards-while no 

doubt important in the long run to the status of the Negro in the armed forces, 

had little to do with the immediate problem of segregation. Secretary Johnson 

had done nothing to enforce the executive order in the Army and his successor 

achieved little more. Willing to let the services set the pace of reform, neither 

secretary substantially changed the armed forces' racial practices. The integration process that began in those years was initiated, appropriately enough 

perhaps, by the services themselves. 
CHAPTER 16 

Integration in the Air Force 

and the Navy 

The racial reforms instituted by the four services between 1949 and 1954 

demonstrated that integration was to a great extent concerned with effective 

utilization of military manpower. In the case of the Army and the Marine Corps 

the reforms would be delayed and would occur, finally, on the field of batcle. 

The Navy and the Air Force, however, accepted the connection between military 

efficiency and integration even before the Fahy Committee began to preach the 

point. Despite their very dissimilar postwar racial practices. the Air Force and 

the Navy were facing the same problem. In a period of reduced manpower 

allocations and increased demand for technically trained men, these services 

came to realize that racial distinctions were imposing unacceptable administrative burdens and reducing fighting efficiency. Their response to the 

Fahy Committee was merely to expedite or revise integration policies already 

decided upon. 

The Air Force, 1949-1951 

The Air Force's integration plan had gone to the Secretary of Defense on 6 

January 1949, committing that service to a major reorganization of its manpower. In a period of severe budget and manpower retrenchment, the Air Force 

was proposing to open all jobs in all fields to Negroes, subject only to the individual qualifications of the men and the needs of the service. 1 To ascertain 

these needs and qualifications the Director of Personnel Planning was prepared 

to screen the service 's 20,146 Negroes (269 officers and 19,877 airmen), approximately 5 percent of its strength, for the purpose of reassigning those eligible to 

former all-white units and training schools and dropping the unfit from the service. 2 As Secretary of the Air Force Symington made clear, his integration plan 

would be limited in scope. Some black service units would be retained; the rest 

would be eliminated, "thereby relieving the Air Force of the critical problems 

involved in manning these units with qualified personnel.'' J 

In the end the integration process was not a drawn-out one; much of Symington's effort in 1949 was devoted instead to winning approval for the plan. 

1

Mcmo, ASecAF for Symington. 25 Mar 49. sub: Salient Facrors of Air Force Policy Regarding Negro Personnel, SecAF files. 2

Ncgro strength figures as of 5 April 1949. Ltr, ASccAF to Robert Harper, Chief Clerk, House Armed Services Cmte, 5 Apr 49, SecAF files. 3

Memo, Symington for Forrcstal, 6 Jan 49. SecAF files. 
398 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Submitted to Forrestal on 6 January 1949, it was slightly revised after lengthy 

discussions in both the Fahy Committee and the Personnel Policy Board and in 

keeping with the Defense Secretary's equal treatment and opportunity directive 

of 6 April 1949. Some further delay resulted from the Personnel Policy Board's 

abortive attempt to achieve an equal opportunity program common to all the 

services. The Air Force plan was not finally approved by the Secretary of Defense 

until 11 May. Some in the Air Force·were worried about the long delay in approval. As early as 12 January the Chief of Staff warned Symington that budget 

programming for the new 48-wing force required an early decision on the plan, 

especially in regard to the inactivation of the all-black wing at Lockbourne. Further delay, he predicted, would cause confusion in reassignment of some 4,000 

troops. 4 In conversation with the Secretary of Defense, Symington mentioned a 

deadline of 31 March, but Assistant Secretary Zuckert was later able to assure 

Symington that the planners could tolerate a delay in the decision over integration until May.~ 

By then t4e long official silence had produced serious consequences, for 

despite the lack of any public announcement, parts of the plan had leaked to 

the press and caused some debate in Congress and considerable dissatisfaction 

among black servicemen. Congressional interest in the internal affairs of the 

armed forces was always of more than passing concern to the services. When a 

discussion of the new integration plan appearing in the Washington Post on 29 

March caused a flurry of comment on Capitol Hill, Zuckert's assistant, Clarence 

H. Osthagen, met with the clerk of the House Armed Services Committee to 

"explain and clarify" for the Air Force. The clerk, Robert Harper, warned 

Osthagen that the impression in the House was that a ''complete intermingling 

of Negro and white personnel was to take place'' and that Congressman 

Winstead of Mississippi had been tempted to make a speech on the subject. 

Still, Harper predicted that there would be no adverse criticism of the plan in 

the House "at this time," adding that since that body had already passed the 

Air Force appropriation Chairman Carl Vinson was generally unconcerned about 

the Air Force racial program. Reporting on Senate reaction, Harper noted that 

while many members of the upper house would have liked to see the plan deferred, they recognized that the President's order made change mandatory. At any 

rate, Harper reassured Osthagen, the announcement of an integration plan 

would not jeopardize pending Air Force legislation. 6 

Unfortunately, the Air Force's black personnel were not so easily reassured, 

and the service had a morale problem on its hands during the spring of 1949. As 

Iacer reported by the Fahy Committee staff, black troops generally supported 

the inactivation of the all-black 332d Fighter Wing at Lockbourne as a necessary 

step toward integration, but news reports frequently linked the disbandment of 

that unit to the belt tightening imposed on the Air Force by the 1950 budget. 

4

Mc:mo. Hoyt S. Vandenberg. CofS. USAF, for SecAF, 12 Jan 49. SccAF files. 

)Memo. SccAF for Forrcstal, 17 Feb 49; Memo. ASccAF for Symington, 24 Mar 49, sub: Lockbourne AFB; 

both in SecAF files. 

6Memo for Files, Osthagen, Am to ASccAF, 13 Apr49, SecAF files. 
INTEGRATION IN THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY 399 

Some Negroes in the 332d concluded that the move was not directed at integration but at saving money for the Air Force. 7 They were concerned lest they find 

themselves relegated to unskilled labor units despite their training and experience. This fear was not so farfetched, considering Zuckert's private prediction that the redistribution of Lockbourne men had to be executed exactly according to the proposed program or ''we would find experienced Air Force 

Negro technical specialists pushing wheelbarrows or driving trucks in Negro service units.' '

8 

The truth was that, while most Negroes in the Air Force favored integration, 

some were disturbed by the prospect of competition with whites of equivalent 

rank that would naturally follow. Many of the black officers were overage in 

grade, their proficiency geared to the F-51, a wartime piston plane, and they 

were the logical victims of any reduction in force that might occur in this period 

of reduced military budgets. 9 Some men doubted that the new program, as they 

imperfectly underslood it, would uuly integrate the service. They could , for example, see no way for the Air Force to break through what the press called the 

"community patterns" around southern bases, and they were generally 

suspicious of the motives of senior department officials. The Pittsburgh Courier 

summarized this attitude by quoting one black officer who expressed doubt 

"that a fair program will be enforced from the top echelon." 10 

But such suspicions were unfounded , for the Air Force's senior officials were 

determined to enforce the new program both fairly and expeditiously. General 

Vandenberg, the Chief of Staff, reponed to the War Council on 11 January that 

the Air Force would "effect full and complete implementation" of its integration plan not only by issuing the required directives and orders, but also by 

assigning responsibili ty for monitoring the worldwide implementation of the 

program to his deputy for personnel. The Chief of Staff also planned to call a 

meeting of his senior commanders to discuss and solve problems rising from the 

plan and impress on them the personal attention they must give to carrying it 

out in the ficld. 11 

The Air Force Commanders' Conference, assembled on 12 April 1949, 

heard Lt. Gen. ldwal Edwards, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, explain 

lhe genesis of the integration plan and outline its major provisions. He menLioned two major steps to be taken in the first phase of the program. First, the 

332d Fighter Wing would be inactivated on or before 30 June, and all blacks 

would be removed from Lockbourne . The commander of the Continental Air 

Command would create a board of Lockbourne officers to screen those assigned 

to the all-black base, dividing them into three groups. The skilled and qualified 

officers and airmen would be reassigned worldwide to white units "just like any 

7J.tr. Joseph H. Evans. Assoc Exec Sc:cy, Fahy Cmtc, tO Fahy Cmte, 23 Jun 49. FC file . Sec also "U.S. 

Armed Forces: 1950," Our 117orld5 Ounc 950):11 3~. 8Draf1 Memo, Zuckcn for Symington. 15 Feb 49, sub: Air Force Policies on Negro Personnel (not sent). Sec A F files. 

9Washington Post. April 4, 1919; US AF Oral History Program, Interview with Lr Col Spann Watson (USAF, Ret.), 3 Apr 73. 10Piusburgh Courier, January 22, 1949. 11Mcmo. Vandenberg. CofS. USAF. for SccAF. 12 Jan 49, SccAF files. 
400 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

other officers or airmen of similar skills and qualifications.'' General Edwards 

assumed that the number of men in this category would not be large. Some 200 

officers and 1, 500 airmen, he estimated, would be found sufficiently qualified 

and proficient for such reassignment. He added parenthetically that Colonel 

Davis understood the ''implications'' of the new policy and intended to recommend only an individual ''of such temperament, judgment, and common sense 

that he can get along smoothly as an individual in a white unit, and second, that 

his ability is such as to warrant respect of the personnel of the unit to which he is 

transferred.'' 

The technically unqualified but still ''usable'' men would be reassigned to 

black service units. The staff recognized, General Edwards added, that some 

Negroes were unsuited for assignment to white units for "various reasons" and 

had specifically authorized the retention of "this type of Negro" in black units. 

Finally, those who were found neither qualified nor useful would be discharged 

under current regulations. 

The second major action would be taken at the same time as the first. All 

commands would similarly screen their black troops with the object of reassigning the skilled and qualified to white units and eliminating the chronically unqualified. At the same time racial quotas for recruitment and school attendance 

would be abolished. Henceforth, blacks would enter the Air Force under the 

same standards as whites and would be classified, assigned, promoted, or 

eliminated in accordance with rules that would apply equally to all. "In other 

words," Edwards commented, "no one is either helped or hindered because of 

the color of his skin; how far or how fast each one goes depends upon his own 

ability." To assure equal treatment and opportunity, he would closely monitor 

the problem. Edwards admitted that the subject of integrated living quarters 

had caused discussion in the staff, but based on the Navy's years of good experience with integrated quarters and bolstered by the probability that the 

number of Negroes in any white unit would rarely exceed 1 percent, the staff 

saw no need for separate sleeping accommodations. 

General Edwards reminded the assembled commanders that, while integration was new to the Air Force, the Navy had been following a similar policy for 

years, encountering no trouble, even in the Deep South where black troops as 

well as the nearby civilian communities understood that when men left the base 

they must conform to the laws and customs of the community. And as a parting 

shot he made the commanders aware of where the command responsibility lay: 

There will be frictions and incidents. However, they will be minimized if commanders 

give the implcmemation of this policy their personal aucntion and exercise positive 

command control. Unless our young commanders are guided and counselled by the 

senior commanders in unbiased implementation, we may encounter serious troubles 

which the Navy has very ably avoided. It must have your personal attention and personal 

control. 12 

Compelling reasons for reform notwithstanding, the effectiveness of an integration program would in the end depend on the attitude and initiative of the 

12Lt Gcn I. H. Edwards, "Remarks on Major Personnel Problems Prescmcd co l:JSAf Commanders' Con· 

ference Headquarters. USAF," 12 Apr 49, SecAF fi les. Italics in the original. 
INTEGRATION IN THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY 401 

local commander. In the Air Force's case the ultimate effectiveness owed much 

to the fact chat the determination of its senior officials was fully explained and 

widely circulated throughout the service. As Lt. Gen. Daniel (Chappie) James, 

Jr., later recalled, those who thought to frustrate the process were well aware 

that they risked serious trouble if their opposition was discovered by the senior 

commanders. None of the obvious excuses for preserving the racial status quo remained acceptable after Vandenberg and Edwards made their positions clear. 13 

The fact that the control of the new plan was specifically made a personal 

responsibility of the senior commanders spoke well for its speedy and efficient 

execution. This was the kind of talk commanders understood, and as the order 

filtered down to the lower echelons its terms became even more explicit. 14 

"Direct attention to this changed condition is required throughout the Command," Maj. Gen. Laurence S. Kuter notified his subordinate commanders at 

the Military Air Transport Service. "Judgment, leadership, and ingenuity are 

demanded. Commanders who cannot cope with the integration of Negroes into 

formerly white units or activities will have no place in the Air Force srructure.'' 15 

The order itself, as approved by the Secretary ot Detense on 11 May 1949 

and published on the same day as Air Force Letter 35-3, was unmistakable in 

intent and clearly spelled out a new bill of rights for Negroes in the Air Force. 16 

The published directive differed in some respects from the version drafted by 

the Chief of Staff in January. Despite General Edwards's comments at the commanders' conference in April, the provision for allowing commanders to 

segregate barracks "if considered necessary" was removed even before the plan 

was first forwarded to the Secretary of Defense. This deletion was made in the 

Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, probably by Zuckert. 17 Later Zuckert 

commented, "I wouldn't want to give the commanders that kind of sweeping 

power. I would be afraid of how it might be exercised.'' 18 From the beginning, 

black airmen were billeted routinely in the living quarters of the units to which 

they were assigned. 

The final version of the directive also deleted reference to a 10 percent 

limitation on black strength in formerly white units. Zuckert had assured the 

Fahy Committee this limitation was designed to facilitate, not frustrate, the absorption of Negroes into white units, and Edwards even agreed that given the 

determination of Air Force officials to make a success of their program, the 

measure was probably unnecessary. 19 In the end Zuckert decided to drop any 

reference to such limitations ''because of the confusion that seemed to arise 

from this statement." 20 

llUSAF Oral History Program, lmerview with Lt Gen Daniel james. Jr., 2 Oct 73. james was to become 

the first four·star black officer in the armed forces. 14Lu, Marr to author, 19 jun 70. 

15MATS Hq Ltr No.9, 1 May 49. SecAF files. 

16 AF Ltr 35-3, 11 May 49. Effective until 11 May 1950, the order was superseded by a new but similar let· 

tcr, AF Ltr 35·78, on 14 September 1950. 17Memo, ASecAF for Symington, 12 jan 49, AF Negro Affairs 49. SecAF files. 

18USAF Oral Hist lnterv with Zuckerc. 1

9-fcstimony of Zuckert and Edwards. USAF. Before the Fahy Committee, 28 Mar 49. afternoon session, 

pp. 7-8. 

20Memo, ASccAF for Symington. 29 Apr 49. sub: Department of the Air Force Implementation of the 

Department of Defense Policy on Equality of Treatmem and Opportunity in the Armed Services, SecAF files. 
402 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Zuckert also deleted several clauses 

in the supplementary letter to Air Force 

commanders that was to :accompany 

and explain the order. These clauses 

had listed possible exemptions from the 

new order: one made it possible to retain a man in a black unit if he was one 

of the ''key personnel'' considered 

necessary for the successful functioning 

of a black unit, and the other allowed 

the local commander to keep those 

Negroes he deemed "best suited" for 

continued assignment to black units. 

The free reassignment of all eligible 

Negroes, particularly the wellqualified, was essential to the eventual 

dissolution of the all-black units. The 

Fahy Committee had objected to these 

provisions and considered it important 

for the Air Force to delete them, 21 but ASSISTANT SECRETARY ZUCKERT 

the matter was not raised during the committee hearings. There is evidence that 

the deletions were actually requested by the Secretary of Defense's Personnel 

Policy Board, whose influence in the integration of the Air Force is often 

overlooked. 22 

The screening of officers and men at Lockbourne got under way on 17 May. 

A board of officers under the presidency of Col. Davis, the commander of 

Lockbourne, and composed of representatives of Air Force headquarters, the 

Continental Air Command, :and the Air Training Command, and important officers of Lockbourne, interviewed every officer in the wing. After considering 

each man's technical training, his performance, and his career field preference, 

the board recommended him for reassignment in a specific duty field. Although 

Edwards had promised that the screening boards would also judge each man's 

"adaptability" to integrated service, this requirement was quickly dropped by 

Davis and his fellow board members. 23 In fact, the whole idea of having screening boards was resented by some black officers. Zuckert later admitted that the 

screening may have been a mistake, but at the time it had been considered the 

best mechanism for ascertaining the proper assignment for the men. 24 

At the same time, a screening team in the Air Training Command gave a 

written examination to Lockbourne's more than 1,100 airmen and WAF's to 

determine if they were in appropriate military occupational specialties. A team 

21Frcedom to Serve, pp. 37-38. 

22Mcmo, SecAF for Chmn, PPB, 3() Apr 49, copy in FC file. McCoy and Ruettcn, QueJt tmd Respome, p. 

223, call the deletion a vicrory for the committee. 23USAF Oral Hist Imerv with Davis. 

24USAF O'ral Hisr lnterv with Zuckcrr. 
INTEGRATION IN THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY 403 

of personnel counselors interviewed all airmen, weighed test scores, past performances, qualifications outside of assigned specialty, and choices of a career 

field, and then placed them in one of three categories. First, they could be earmarked for general reassignment in a specific military occupational specialty different from the one they were now in; second, they could be scheduled for additional or more advanced technical training; or third, they could be trained in 

their current specialties. The screeners referred marginal or extraordinary cases to 

Colonel Davis's board for decision. 2

) 

Concurrently with the Lockbourne processing, individual commanders 

established similar screening procedures wherever black airmen were then 

assigned. All these teams uncovered a substantial number of men and women 

considered eligible for further training or reassignment. (Table 4) 

T ABI.E 4-DISPOSITION OF BLACK PERSONNEL AT EIGHT AIR FORCE BASES, 1949 

Percentages 

Total Asgmt to Asgmtto Asgmtto Recom for 

Base Tested lnstr Duty Tech School Present MOS Board Action 

Lockbourne 

Male . ..... . .•. . . ••••• • ••••• 0 970 .32 12.08 64.64 22.98 

Female . ..... . .... . ... . .. . ... 58 0.00 25.86 55.17 18.97 

Lackland . ..... • ............... 247 1.62 20.65 67.61 10. 12 

Barksdale ...... . .... . . . ....... . ISS 0.00 20.25 65.82 13.93 

Randolph ••••• • •••• • • .• •.••• 0. 252 2.38 26.19 57.14 14.29 

Waco ....... . . . .... • .......... 1.46 2.06 30.14 57.53 10.27 

Mather .. . .. . . .... .. . ... . .. .... 126 .79 27.78 40.48 30.95 

Williams ... . ............. . .... 144 8.33 21.53 39.58 30.56 

Goodfellow .. . . . .. . . • . . . . ... .. . 122 .82 36.89 40.89 21.31 

Total . .................... 2,223 1.35 19.61 59.20 19.84 

Sourte: President's Cmte on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in rhe Armed Forces, "A First Report on the Racial Integration Program of the Air Force," 6 Feb ~0. FC file. 

The process of screening Lockbourne's troops was quickly completed, but 

the process of reassigning them was considerably more drawn-out. The 

reassignments were somewhat delayed in the first place by indecision, caused by 

budgetary uncertainties, on the future of Lockbourne itself. By 25 July, a full 

two months after the screening began, the Lockbourne board had recommended 

only 181 officers and 700 airmen to Air Force headquarters for new assignment. 

A short time later, however, Lockbourne was placed on inactive status and its remaining men and women, with the exception of a small caretaker detachment, 

were quickly reassigned throughout the Air Force. 

The staff had predicted that the speed with which the integration order was 

carried out would follow a geographical pattern, with southern bases the last to 

integrate, but in fact no special pattern prevailed . For the many Negroes assigned to all-black base squadrons for administrative purposes but serving on a 

day-to-day basis in integrated units, the change was relatively simple. These 

men had already demonstrated their ability to perform their duties competently 

2)NME Fact Sheet No. 105-49, 27 ]ul49. 
404 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

under integration, and in conformity with the new order most commanders immediately assigned them to the units in which they were already working. Except for their own squadron overhead, some base service squadrons literally 

disappeared when these reassignments were effected. After the screening process, most commanders also quickly reassigned troops serving in the other allblack units, such as Squadron F's, air ammunition, motor transport, vehicle 

repair, signal heavy construction, and aviation engineer squadrons.26 

There were of course a few exceptions. Some commanders, noticeably more 

cautious than the majority, began the integration process with considerably less 

ease and speed. 27 As late as January 1950, for example, the Fahy Committee's 

executive secretary found that, with the exception of a small number of Negroes 

assigned to white units, the black airmen at Maxwell Air Force Base were still 

assigned to the all-black 3817th Base Service Squadron, the only such unit he 

found, incidentally, in a tour of seven installations. 28 But as the months went by 

even the most cautious commander, learning of the success of the new policy in 

other commands, began to reassign his black airmen according to the recommendations of the screening board. Despite the announcement that some black 

units would be retained, practically all units were integrated by the end of the 

first year of the new program. Even using the Air staff's very restricted definition 

of a ''Negro unit," that is, one whose strength was over 50 percent black, 

statistics show how radical was the change in just one year. (Table 5) 

TABLE ) - RACIAL COMPOSITION OF AIR FORCE UNITS 

Negroes Assigned Negroes Assigned 

Month Black Units Integrated Units to Black tO Integrated 

Units Units1 

1949 

June .. ............ 106 167 Not available Not available 

july . .. ..... . .. . .. . 89 3~0 14,609 7.369 

August ..... . .. . ... 86 711 11 ,921 11,977 

September ......... 91 863 11 ~21 13,290 

October ........... 88 1,031 9.522 15,980 

November ........ . n 1,158 8.038 17,643 

December . . ... •.. •. 67 1,2H 7.402 18.489 

19}0 

january . .. ....•..•. 59 1.301 6.7H 18.929 

February . .... .... , . 36 1.399 5. 511 20,6~4 

March ...... .. , .. •. 26 1,476 5,023 20.938 

April .. ... . •.. •.. •. 24 1.~1 5 4,728 20.793 

May . ... . , . .. . , .. .. 24 1.~06 4,675 21,033 

1

Figures extracted from the Marr Report; sec also monthly reports on AF integration. for example Memo. Dir. Pers Ping, for 

Osthagen (SccAF office), 10 Mar 50. sub: Distribution of Negro Personnel, SecAF files. 

26"Report on the First Year of Implementation of Current Policies Regarding Negro Personnel," Inc! ro 

Memo, Maj Gen Richard E. Nugent for ASecAF, 14 Jul )0, sub: Distribution of Negro Personnel, PPB 291.2 

(9 Jul )0) (hereafter referred to as Marr Report). See also USAF Oral Hist lnterv with Marr. 

27USAF Oral Hist !nterv with Davis. 28President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces, ''A First Report 

on the Racial Integration Program of the Air Force," 6 Feb 50, FC file (hereafter cited· as Kenworthy Report). 
INTEGRATION IN THE AIR FORCE AND THEN A VY 405 

Despite the predictions of some analysts, the effect of integration on black 

recruitment proved to be negligible. In a service whose total strength remained 

about 415,000 men during the first year of integration, Negroes numbered as 

follows (Table 6): 

T ABLF. 6- BLACK STReNGTH IN THE AIR FORCE 

Officer Enlisted Percentage 

Date Strength1 Strength1 of Air Force 

Strength 

December 1948 ......... . . Not available Not available 6.) 

June 1949 ............... 319 (47) 21 '782 (2, 196) 6.0 

August 1949 ........ ... .. 330 (32) 23.568 (2,275) 6.) 

December 1949 ........... 368 (18) 25.523 (3,072) 7.2 

May 1950 .......... ...... 341 (8) 25.367 (2,611) 7.1 

1

1ncludes in parentheses the Special Category Army Personnel with Air force (SCARWAF), those soldiers assigned for duty 

in the Air Force but still administratively under the segregated Army. leftovers from the Department of Defense reorganiza. 

tion of 19~7 . Figures extracted from Ma.rr Report. 

The Air staff explained that the slight surge in black recruits in the early 

months of integration was related less to the new policy than to the abnormal 

recruiting conditions of the period. In addition to the backlog of Negroes who 

for some time had been trying to enlist only to find the Air Force quota filled, 

there were many black volunteers who had turned to the quota-free Air Force 

when the Army, its quota of Negroes filled for some time, stopped recruiting 

Negroes. 

With Negroes serving in over 1, 500 separate units there was no need to invoke the 10 percent racial quota in individual units as Vandenberg had ordered. 

One notable exception during the first months of the program was the Air 

Training Command, where the rapid and unexpected reassignment of many 

black airmen caused some bases, James Connally in Texas, for example, to acquire a great many Negroes while others received few or none. To prevent a 

recurrence of the Connally experience and '• to effect a smooth operation and 

proper adjustment of social importance," the commander of the Air Training 

Command imposed an 8 to 10 percent black quota on his units and established 

a procedure for staggering the assignment of black airmen in small groups over a 

period of thirty to sixty days instead of assigning them to any particular base in 

one large increment. These quotas were not applied to the basic training flights, 

which were completely integrated. It was not uncommon to find black enlistees 

in charge of racially mixed training flights. 29 Of all Air Force organizations, the 

Training Command received the greatest number of black airmen as a result of 

the screening and reassignment. (Table 7) 

At the end of the first year under the new program, the Acting Deputy 

Chief of Staff for Personnel, General Nugent, informed Zuckert that integration had progressed " rapidly, smoothly and virtually without incident." 30 In 

view of this fact and at Nugent's recommendation,· the Air Force canceled the 

monthly headquarters check on the program. 

2

9 ATC, "History of ATC. July-December 1949," 1:29-31; New York Times, September 18, 1949. 

l

0Mcmo, Actg DCSPER for Zuckcrt, 14 Jul 50, USAF file No. 33 70. SecAP files. 
406 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

T AlllE 7- Rt.CIAI. COMPOSITION OF THE TRAINING COMMAND, 0ECEMOER 1949 

A. !'light Training 

Officers . ... . .... .. .... . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . 

Enlisted . . ... .... . .. ...... •. . . . .. •.. .. .... 

Total .. ... . . . ...... . . . . .. .•. . .... . . 

B. Technical Training 

Officers .... . . . .. . . ... .. . •. . ..... . . .. .. ... 

Enlisted . . .. ... . .. . .... . . . .. . .... . . . . . . . . . 

Toral .. . . .. ... . . . .. .... . .. . . . .. . . . . 

C. Indoctrination (Basic) Training 

Whirc . . . .. . . . .. . . . . . . .. ... . . . .. . . . 

Black .. . . .. . . . .. ...... . .. •. . .... • ..... . .. . 

Toral . . . .. . . .... . . .. . .... . . . .. . . .. . 

Percent black .... . . . . .... . . . . . ....... ... . . . 

D. Officers Candidate Training (candidates graduating 

from 28 November through 26 December 1949) 

White . . . . . ................ . ..... ········ Black . . . . .. . .. . .... . . . .. .•. . .... •.. .... .. 

Toral .. . . . . .. ... . .. •. . . . .. . .. .. .... 

Percent black ... .. . .. . . ... •. . . .. . •. ... •. .. 

E. Course Representation 

Base 

Chanute ... .. ............ . . . . . .. .. . . . .... . 

Warren .. . .. . . .. •.. . . •. .. . . . .. ... . . .. . •. . . 

Keesler . ... . . . .. •.. . . •. . . .. .. . . . . •.. . . •. . . 

Lowry ....... ... •. . .. •... . . .... . . . .. . . •. .. 

Scotr. ... .. ........ . . . . ...... . .... . .... . . . 

Sheppard . .. . . . . .... . .. . . . .. . ........ . ... . 

White 

1,345 

2,063 

3,408 

1,897 

25,838 

27,735 

7,649 

1,007 

8.656 

11.62 

225 

7 

232 

3.0 

No. of Cormesb 

31 

II 

16 

23 

6 

4 

Percent 

Black Black 

II .8 

22 1.0 

33 .9 

37 1.9 

1,819 6.5 

1,856 6.0 

No. oJ Courses with Blacks 

21 

10 

7 

13 

4 

'In January 1950. probably as a result of a decline in backlog and the raising of enlistment standard to GCI' 100. this 

peLccntage dropped to 8.8. Negroes in 61 percent of the courses offered as of 26 Dec 1949. Source: Kenworthy Report. 

To some extent the Air Force's integration program ran away with itself. 

Whatever their personal convictions regarding discrimination, senior Air Force 

officials had agreed that integration would be limited. They were most concerned with managerial problems associated with continued segregation of the 

black flying unit and the black specialists scattered worldwide. Other black units 

were not considered an immediate problem. Assistant Secretary Zucken admitted as much in March 1949 when he reported that black service units would 

be retained since they performed a "necessary Air Force function." 31 As 

originally conceived, the Air Force plan was frankly imitative of the Navy's 

postwar program, stressing merit and ability as the limiting factors of change. 

The Air Force promised to discharge all its substandard men, but those black 

airmen either ineligible for discharge or for reassignment to specialist duty 

would remain in segregated units. 

Yet once begun, the int-egration process quickly became universal. By the 

end of 1950, for example, the Air Force had reduced the number of black units 

to nine with 95 percent of its black airmen serving in integrated units. The 

" Memo. ASccAF for Symington. 25 Mar 49. sub: Salicnr Factors of Air Force Policy Regarding Negro Per· 

sonncl. SccAF files. 
INTEGRATION IN THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY 407 

number of black officers rose to 411, an increase of 10 percent over the previous 

year, and black airmen to 25,)23, an increase of 15 percent, although the proportion of blacks to whites continued to remain between 6 and 7 percent. 32 

Some eighteen months later only one segregated uhit was left, a 98-man outfit, 

itself more than 26 percent white. Negroes were then serving in 3,466 integrated 

units. 33 

There were several reasons for the universal application of what was conceived as a limited program. First, the Air Force was in a sense the captive of its 

own publicity. While Secretary Symington had carefully delineated the limits of 

his departmental plan for the Personnel Policy Board in January 1949. he was 

carried considerably beyond these limits when he addressed President Truman 

in the open forum of the Fahy Committee's first formal meeting: 

As long as you mentioned the Air Force, sir, I just want to report to you that our plan is 

to completely eliminate se~regation in the Air Force. For example, we have a fine group 

of colored boys. Our plan tS to take those boys, break up that fine group, and put them 

with the other units themselves and go right down the line all through these subdivisions one hundred percem.34 

Later, Symington told the Fahy Committee that while the new program would 

probably temporarily reduce Air Force efficiency "we are ready, willing, and 

anxious to embark on this idea. We want to eliminate the fundamental aspect of 

class in this picture.~~~~ Clearly, the retention of large black units was incompatible with the elimination of class distinctions. 

The more favorable the publicity garnered by the plan in succeeding 

months, the weaker the distinction became between the limited integration of 

black specialists and total integration. Reinforcing the favorable publicity were 

the monthly field reporrs that registered a steady drop in the number of black 

units and a corresponding rise in the number of integrated black airmen. This 

well-publicized progress provided another, almost irresistible reason for completing the task. 

More to the point, the success of the program provided its own impetus to 

total integration. The prediction that a significant number of black officers and 

men would be ineligible for reassignment or further training proved illfounded. The Air Force, it turned out, had few untrainable men, and after the 

screening process and transfer of those eligible was completed, many black units 

were so severely reduced in strength that their inactivation became inevitable. 

The fear of white opposition that had inhibited the staff planners and local commanders also proved groundless. According to a Fahy Committee staff report in 

March 1950, integration had been readily accepted at all levels and the process 

32Air Force Times, 10 February 1951. These figures do nor take into account the SCARWAF (Army per· 

sonncl) who continued to serve in segregated units within the Air Force. 33Memo, DepSecAF for Manpower and Organizations for ASD/M, 5 Sep 52, SecAF files. 

34Transcript of the Meeting of the Presidcm and the Four Service Secretaries With the President's Com· 

mince on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. 12 Jan 49. FC file. which reporrs the 

President's response as being "That's all right." 

~Tcsdmony of the Secretary of the Air Force Before the Fahy Committee. 28 Mar 49, afternoon session, p. 

33 . 
408 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

had been devoid of friction. ''The 

men," E. W. Kenworthy reported, 

"apparently were more ready for 

equality of treatmenr and opportunity 

than the officer corps had realized.'' 36 

At the same time, Kenworthy noted the 

effect of successful integration on the 

local commanders. Freed from the 

charges of discrimination that had 

plagued them at every turn, most of the 

commanders he interviewed remarked 

on the increased military efficiency of 

their units and the improved utilization 

of their manpower that had come with 

integration. They liked the idea of a 

strictly competitive climate of equal 

standards rigidly applied, and some expected that the Air Force example 

would have an effect, eventually, on 

civilian attitudes. 37 

For the Air Force, it seemed, the 

MUSIC MAKERS of the U.S. Far East 

Atr Force prepare to celebrate 

Christmas, Korea, 1950. problem of segregation was all over but 

for the celebrating. And there was plenty of that, thanks to the Fahy Committee 

and the press. In a well-publicized tour of a cross section of Air Force installations in early 1950, Kenworthy surveyed the integration program for the committee. His favorable report won the Air Force laudatory headlines in the national press and formed the core of the Air Force section of the Fahy Committee's final report, Freedom to Serve. 38 For its part, the black press covered the 

program in great detail and gave its almost unanimous approval. As early as July 

1949, for example, Dowda! H. Davis, president of the Negro Newspaper 

Publishers Association, reported on the highly encouraging reaction to the 

breakup of the 332d, and the headlines reflected this attitude: ''The Air Force 

Leads the Way," the Chicago Defender headlined; "Salute to the Air Force," 

the Minneapolis Spokesman editorialized; and "the swiftest and most amazing 

upset of racial policy in the history of the U.S. Military," Ebony concluded. 

Pointing to the Air Force program as the best, the Pittsburgh Courier called the 

progress toward total integration "better than most dared hope. " 39 

}6Kenworthy Report, as quoted and commenced on in Memo, Worthington Thompson (Personnel Policy 

Board stafO for Leva, 9 Mar ~0. sub: Some Highlights of Fahy Committee Report on Air Force Racial Integration Program, SO 291.2. · 

}7Ltr, Kenworthy to Zuckert, 5 Jan 50, SecAF files. 

38

Sec, for example, the Washington Post, March 27. 1950. 

39Press reaction summarized in Memo. James C. Evans for PPB, 19 Jan ~0 . PPB 291.2. Sec also. Ltr, 

Dowda! Davis, Gen Manager of the Kansas City Call, to Evans, 9 Jul49. SO 291 .2; Memo, Evans for SecAF. 5 

Jul49; and Memo, Zuckert for SecAF, 2 Aug 49. both in SecAF files; Chicago Defender, June 18, 1949; Minneapolis Spokesman, January 13, 19~0 ; Ebony Magazine, 4 (September 1949): 15; Pinsburgh Courier. July 2~, 

1952; Detroit Free Press, May 14, 1953. 
INTEGRATION IN THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY 409 

General Vandenberg and his staff were well aware of the rapid and profound 

change in the Air Force wrought by the integration order. From the start his personnel chief carefully monitored the program and reviewed the reports from the 

commands, ready to investigate any racial incidents or differences attributable 

to the new policy. The staff had expected a certain amount of testing of the new 

policy by both white and black troops, and with few exceptions the incidents 

reported turned out to be little more than that. Some arose from attempts by 

Negroes to win social acceptance at certain Air Force installations, but the majority of cases involved attempts by white airmen to introduce their black comrades into segregated off-base restaurants and theaters. Two examples might 

stand for all. The first involved a transient black corporal who stopped off at the 

Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C. , to get a haircut in a post exchange 

barbershop. He was refused service and in the absence of the post exchange officer he returned to the shop to trade words and eventually blows with the 

barber. The corporal was subsequently coun-martialed, but the sentence was set 

aside by a superior court. 40 Another case involved a small group of white airmen 

who ordered refreshments at a segregated lunch counter in San Antonio, Texas, 

for themselves "and a friend who would join them later." The friend, of course, 

was a black airman. The Inspector General reported this incident to be just one 

of a number of attempts by groups of white and black airmen to integrate lunch 

counters and restaurants. In each case the commanders concerned cautioned 

their men against such action, and there were few reoccurrences. 41 

The commanders' warnings were understandable because, as any official 

from Secretary Symington on down would quickly explain, the Air Force did not 

regard itself as being in the business of forcing changes in American society; it 

was simply trying to make the best use of its man£ower to build military efficiency in keeping with its national defense mission. 2 But in the end the integration order proved effective on both counts. Racial feelings, racial incidents, 

charges of discrimination, and the problems of procurement, training, and 

assignment always associated with racially designated units had been reduced by 

an appreciable degree or eliminated entirely. The problems anticipated from 

the mingling of bla<.:ks and whites in social situations had proved to be largely 

imaginary. The Air Force adopted a standard formula for dealing with these 

problems during the next decade. Incidents involving black airmen were treated 

as individual incidents and dealt with on a personal basis like any ordinary 

disciplinary case. Only when there was no alternative was an incident labeled 

''racial'' and then the commander was expected to deal speedily and firmly with 

the troublemakers.43 This sensible procedure freed the Air Force for a decade 

from the charges of on-base discrimination that had plagued it in the past. 

40Memo, IG. USAF, for ASecAF. 25 Jul49. SccAF files. 41 Idcm for DCSPER, 7 Scp 49, copy in SecAF files; sec also ACofS, G-2, Founh Army. Ft. Sam Houston. 

Summary of Information, 7 Sep 49. copy in SA 291.2. 

42Scc, for example, Memo. SccAF for SccDef. 17 Feb 49; Ltr, SccAF to Sen. Burnet R. Maybank, 21 Jul 

49; both in SecAF files. 

43Mcmo. Evans. OSD. for Worthington Thompson, 18 May 53. sub: Summary of Topics Reviewed in 

Thompson's office 15 May 53. SO 291.2. 
410 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Without a doubt the new policy improved the Air Force's manpower efficiency, as the experience of the 3202d 

Installation Group illustrates. A 

segregated unit serving at Eglin Air 

Force Base, Florida, the 3202d was composed of an all-black heavy maintenance and construction squadron, a 

black maintenance repair and utilities 

squadron, and an all-white headquarters and headquarters squadron. 

This rigid segregation had caused considerable trouble for the unit's personnel section, which was forced to assign 

men on the basis of color rather than 

military occupational specialty. For 

example, a white airman with MOS 

34 5. a truck driver, although assigned 

to the unit, could not be assigned to the 

MAINTENANCE CREW. 462d Strategic heavy maintenance and construction 

Figtzkter _Jquapdr8o4n',r,~zsa~se":}'leks aft squadron where his specialty was 

sec on o1 an - .1. nunuers., ea . . . authonzed but had to be asstgned to 

the white headquarters squadron where his specialty was not authorized. Clearly 

operating in an inefficient manner, the unit was charged with misassignment of 

personnel by the Air Inspector; in July 1950 it was swiftly and peaceably, if 

somewhat belatedly, integrated, and its three squadrons were converted to 

racially mixed units, allowing an airman to be assigned according to h is training 

and not his color. 44 

The preoccupation of high officials with the effects of integration on a 

soldier's social life seemed at times out of keeping with the issues of national 

defense and military efficiency. At one of the Fahy Committee hearings, for instance, an exasperated Charles Fahy asked Omar Bradley, "General, are you 

running an Army or a dance?" ~ Yet social life on military bases at swimming 

pools, dances, bridge parties, and service clubs formed so great a part of the 

fabric of military life that the Air Force staff could hardly ignore the possibility 

of racial troubles in the countless social exchanges that characterized the day-today life in any large American institution. The social situation had been seriously considered before the new racial policy was approved. At that time the 

staff had predicted that problems developing out of integration would not prove 

insurmountable, and indeed on the basis of a year's experience a member of the 

Air staff declared that 

44His10ry Officer. 3202d Installations Groups. "History of the 3202d Installations Group. 1 July- 31 Oc· 

tobcr 1950." Eglin AFB. Fla .. pp.ll-9. 

Th s off·thc·rccord comment occurred during the committee hearings in the Pentagon and was related to 

the author by E. W. Kenworthy in interview on 17 Ocwbcr 1971. Sec also Memo, Kenworthy to Brig Gco 

James L. Collins, Jr., 13 Oct 76. copy in CMH. 
INTEGRATION IN THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY 

at the point where the Negro and the white 

person are actually in contact the problem 

has virtually disappeared. Since all races of 

Air Force personnel work to~ether under 

identical environmental condttions on the 

base , it is not unnatural that they participate together, to the extent that they 

deme, in certain social activities which are 

considered a normal part of service life. This 

type of integration has been entirely voluntary, without incident, and considerably 

more comRlete and more rapid than was anticipated. 6 

The Air staff had imposed only two 

rules on interracial social activities: with 

due regard for sex and rank all Air Force 

facilities were available for the 

unrestricted use of all its members; 

troublemakers would get into trouble. 

Under these inflexible rules, the Fahy 

411 

Committee later reported, there was a JET MECHANICS work on an F-100 

steady movement in the direction of Supersabre, Foster Air Force Base, 

shared facilities. "Here again, mutual Texas. 

respect engendered on the job or in the 

school seemed to translate itself into friendly association. " 47 Whether it liked it 

or not, the Air Force was in the business of social change. 

Typical of most unit reports was one from the commander of the 1701st Air 

Transport Wing, Great Falls Air Force Base, Montana, who wrote Secretary Symington that the unit's eighty-three Negroes, serving in ten different organizations, lived and worked with white airmen' 'on an apparently equal and friendly 

basis.' '

48 The commander had been unable to persuade local community 

leaders, however, to promote equality of treatment outside the base, and 

beyond its movie theaters Great Falls had very few places that allowed black 

airmen. The commander was touching upon a problem that would eventually 

trouble all the services: airmen, he reported to Secretary Symington, although 

they have good food and entertainment on the base, sooner or later want to go 

to town, sit at a table, and order what they want. The Air Force was now coming 

into conflict with local custom which it could see no way to control. As the Air 

Force Times put it, "The Air Force, like the other services, feels circumspect 

policy in this regard is the only advisable one on the grounds that off-base 

segregation is a matter for civilian rather than military decision.' '

49 

But this problem could not detract from what had been accomplished on the 

bases. Judged by the standards it set for itself before the Fahy Committee, the 

46Marr Report. 47Freedom to Serve, p. 41. 

48Ltr, Col Paul H. Prentiss, Cmdr, 170 1st AT Wing, to SccAF. 27 Dec 49. SecAF files. 4

9 A1r Force Times, 10 February 1951. 
412 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Air Force had achieved its goals. Further, they were achieved in the period between 1949 and 1956 when the percentage of blacks in the service doubled, an 

increase resulting from the Defense Department's qualitative distribution of 

manpower rather than the removal of the racial quota. 50 During these years the 

number of black airmen rose from 5 .1 to 10.4 percent of the enlisted strength 

and the black officers from 0. 6 to 1.1 percent. Reviewing the situation in 1960, 

Ebony noted that the program begun in 1949 was working well and that white 

men were accepting without question progressive racial practices forbidden in 

their home communities. Minor racial flare-ups still occurred, but integration 

was no longer a major problem in the Air Force; it was a fact of life. 51 

The Navy and Executive Order 9981 

The changing government attitude toward integration in the late 1940's had 

less dramatic effect on the Navy than upon the other services because the Navy 

was already the conspicuous possessor of a racial policy guaranteeing equal treatment and opportunity for all its members. But as the Fahy Committee and 

many other critics insisted, the Navy's 1946 equality guarantee was largely 

theore'tica!; its major racial problem was not one of policy but of practice as 

statistics demonstrated . It was true, for example, that the Navy had abolished 

racial quotas in recruitment, yet the small number of black sailors-17 ,000 during 1949, averaging 4. 5 percent of the total strength-made the absence of a 

quota academic. 52 It was true that Negroes served side by side with white sailors 

in almost every occupation and training program in the Navy, but it was also a 

fact that 62 percent of all Negroes in the Navy in 1949 were still assigned to the 

nonwhite Steward's Branch. This figure shows that as late as December 1949 

fewer than 7,000 black sailors were serving in racially integrated assignments. 53 

Again, with only 19 black officers, including 2 nurses, in a 1949 average officer 

strength of 45,464, it meant little to say that the Navy had an integrated officer 

corps. A shadow had fallen, then, between the promise of the Navy's policy and 

its fulfillment, partly because of indifferent execution. 

Submitted to and approved by the Secretary of Defense, the new Navy plan 

announced on 7 June 1949 called for a specific series of measures to bring 

departmental practices into line with policy.

54 Once he had gained Johnson's 

approval, Secretary of the Navy Matthews did not tarry. On 23 June he issued an 

explicit statement to all ships and stations, abjuring racial distinctions in the 

)0Mcmo for Red. ADS(M). 12 Scp )6, sub: Integration Percentages, ADS(M) 291.2. for funhur discus· 

sion of the qualitative disrribution program, see Navy section, below. 

H "Inregrarion in the AiJ Force Abroad," Ebony I) (March 1960) :27. 

Unless otherwise noted all statistics are from information supplied by the Bureau of Naval Personnel. 

The exact percentage on I July 1949 was 4. 7; see Memo for Red, ASD(M), 12 Sep %, sub: Integration Percen· 

rages, ASD(M) 291.2. 

HMemo, Chief, NavPers, for Under SecNav, ) Dec 49, sub: Proposed Report to Chairman Personnel 

Polic~ Board Regarding the Implementation of Executive Order 9981 , Pcrs 21, GcnRecsNav. 

~ Memo, SecNav for SccDef, 23 May 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed 

Forces, copy in FC file. 
INTEGRATION IN THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY 413 

Navy and Marine Corps and ordering that all personnel be enlisted or appointed, trained, advanced or promoted, assigned and administered without 

regard to race, color, religion, or national origin. 55 Admirable and comprehensive, Matthew's statement scarcely differed in intent from his predecessor's 

general declaration of equal treatment and opportunity of 12 December 1945 

and the more explicit directive of the Chief of Naval Operations on the same 

subject on 27 February 1946. Yet despite the close similarity, a reiteration was 

clearly necessary. As even the most ardent apologist for the navy's postwar racial 

policy would admit, these grouodbreaking statements had not done the job, 

and, to satisfy the demands of the Fahy Committee and the Secretary of 

Defense, Secretary Matthews had co convince his subordinates that the demand 

for equal treatment and opportunity was serious and had to be dealt with immediately. His specific mention of the Marine Corps and the problems of enlistment, assignment, and promotion, subjects ignored in the earlier directives, 

represented a stare toward the reform of his department's racial practices currently out of step with its expressed policy. 

Yet a restatement of policy, no maccer how specific, was not enough. As 

Under Secretary Dan A. Kimball admitted, the Navy had the formidable task of 

convincing its own people of the sincerity of its policy and of erasing the distrust 

that had developed in the black community "resulting from past discriminating 

practices. " 56 Those who were well aware of the Navy's earlier failure to achieve 

integration by fiat were bound to greet Secretary Matthews's directive with skepticism unless it was accompanied by specific reforms. Matthews, aware of the 

necessity, immediately inaugurated a campaign to recruit more black sailors, 

commission more black officers, and remove the stigma attached to service in 

the Steward's Branch. 

It was logical enough co stare a reform of the Navy's integration program by 

attacking the perennial problem of too few Negroes in the general service. In his 

annual report to the Secretary of Defense, Matthews outlined some of the practical seeps the Navy was taking to attract more qualified young blacks. The 

Bureau of Naval Personnel, he explained, planned co assign black sailors and officers to its recruiting service. As a first seep it assigned eight Negroes to Recruitment Procurement School and subsequently to recruit duty in eight major cities 

with further such assignments planned when current manpower ceilings were 

lifted. 57 

The Bureau of Naval Personnel had also polled black reservists on the 

possibility of returning to active duty on recruiting assignments, and from this 

group had chosen five officers for active duty in the New York, Philadelphia, 

Washington, Detroit, and Chicago recruiting offices. At the same time black officers and petty officers were sent to extol the advantages of a naval career before 

H ALNAV 447-49. which remained in force until 23 March 1953 when SecNav Instruction 1000.2 

superseded it without substantial change. 

)

6Memo, Under SecN~v for Chmn. PPB, 22 Dec 49. sub: Implementation of Executive Order 998 1, PPB 

291.2. 

HsccNav. Annual Report to SccDei, FY 1949. p. 230: Memo. Under SccNav Chmn. PPB, 22 Dec 49. sub: 

Implementation of Executive Order 998 1. PPB 291 .2. 
414 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

black student bodies and citizen groups. 58 Their performances were exceedingly 

well received. The executive secretary of the Dayton, Ohio, Urban League, for 

example, thanked Secretary Matthews for the appearances of Lieutenant Nelson 

before groups of students, reporters, and community leaders in the city. The 

lieutenant, he added, not only "clearly and effectively interpreted the opportunities open to Negro youth in the United States Navy" but also "greatly accelerated" the community's understanding of the Navy's integration 

program. 59 Nelson, himself, had been a leading advocate of an accelerated 

public relations program to advertise the opportunities for Negroes in the 

Navy.60 The personnel bureau had adopted his suggestion that all recruitment 

literature, including photographs testifying to the fact that Negroes were serving 

in the general service, be widely distributed in predominantly black institutions. 

Manpower ceilings, however, had forced the bureau to postpone action on 

Nelson's suggestion that posters, films, pamphlets, and the like be used. 61 

An obvious concomitant to the increase in the number of black sailors was an 

increase in the number of black officers. The personnel bureau was well aware of 

this connection; Comdr. Luther C. Heinz, officer in charge of naval reserve officer training, called the shortage of Negroes in his program a particularly important problem. He promised, "in accord with the desires of the President," as 

he put it, to increase black participation in the Naval Reserve Officers' Training 

Corps, and his superior, the Chief of Naval Personnel, started a program in the 

bureau for that purposeY With the help of the National Urban League, Heinz 

arranged a series of lectures by black officers at forty-nine black schools and 

other institutions to interest Negroes in the Navy's reserve officers program. In 

August 1949, for example, Ens. Wesley Brown, the first Negro to be graduated 

from Annapolis, addressed gatherings in Chicago on the opportunities for 

Negroes as naval officers.

63 

At the same time the Bureau of Naval Personnel wrote special press releases, 

arranged interviews for naval officials with members of the black press, and 

distributed publicity materials in predominantly black schools to attract candidates and to assure interested young men that race was no bar to their selection. In this connection Commander Heinz bid for and received an invitation to 

address the Urban League's annual conference in August 1949 to outline the 

Navy's program. The Chief of Naval Personnel, Rear Adm. Thomas L. Sprague, 

)

8Memo, Dir. Recruiting Div, BuPers. for Admin Aide to SccNav, 22 Dec 50, sub: Negro Officer in 

Recruiting on the West Coast; Lu, SccNav to Actg Exec Dir, Urban League. Los Angeles, 22 Dec 50; both in 

Pcrs B6, GcnRecsNav. 59Lu. Charles W. Washington, Exec Sccy, Dayton. Ohio, Urban League, to SecNav, 19 Oct 50. copy in 

Pers 1376. GenRecsNav. 60Memo, Nelson for Charles Durham, Fahy Committee, sub: lmplcmcmation of Proposed Navy Racial 

Potier· 17 Jun 49. FC fi le. 6 Memo, Under SccNav for Chmn, PPB, 22 Dec 49. sub: Implementation of Executive Order 9981, PPB 

291.2. 62Memo, Off in Charge. NROTC Tng, for Chief, Plans & Policy Div, BuPcrs. 14 Jul49, sub: NROTC Personnel Problems. Pers 424, BuPersRecs. 

63Ltr, Granger to Chief. NavPers. 3 Aug 49. Pcrs 42, BuPersRecs. 
INTEGRATION IN THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY 415 

also arranged for the training of all those engaged in promoting the program- professors of naval science, naval procurement officers, and the like. In 

states where such assignments were considered acceptable, Sprague planned to 

appoint Negroes to selection committees.64 In a related move he also ordered 

that when local law or custom required the segregation of facilities used for the 

administration of qualifying tests for reserve officer training, the Navy would 

use its own facilities for testing. This ruling was used when the 1949 examinations were given in Atlanta and New Orleans; to the delight of the black press 

the Navy transferred the test site to its nearby facilities. 6) These efforrs had some 

positive effect. In 1949 alone some 2, 700 black youths indicated an interest in 

the Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps by submitting applications.66 

Despite these well-intentioned efforrs, the Navy ·failed to increase 

significantly the number of black officers or sailors in the next decade (Table 8). 

The percentage of Negroes in the Navy increased so slowly that not until 1955, 

in the wake of the great manpower buildup during the Korean War, did it exceed the 1949 figure. Although the percentage of black enlistments increased 

significantly at times-approximately 12 percent of all enlistments in 1955 were 

black, for example-the proportion of Negroes in the Navy's enlisted ranks was 

only 0.4 percent higher in 1960 than in 1949. While the number of black officers increased more than sevenfold in the same decade, it was still considerably 

less than 1 percent of the total officer strength, well below Army and Air Force 

percentages. 

The Navy had an explanation for the small number of Negroes. The reduced 

manpower ceilings imposed on the Navy, even during the Korean War, had 

caused a drastic curtailment in recruiting. At the same time, with the brief exception of the Korean War, the Navy had depended on volunteers for enlistment and had required volunteers to score ninety or higher on the general 

classification test. The percentage of those who scored above ninety was lower 

for blacks than for whites- 16 percent against 67 percent, a ratio, naval 

spokesmen suggested, that explained the enlistment figures. Furthermore, the 

low enlistment quotas produced a long waiting list of those desiring to 

volunteer. All applicants for the relatively few openings were thoroughly 

screened, and competition was so keen' that any Negroes accepted for the 

monthly quota had to be extraordinacily well qualified.67 

What the Navy's explanation failed to mention was that the rise and decline 

in the Navy's black strength during the 1950's was intimately related to the 

number of group IV enlistees being forced on the services under the provisions 

64Memo. Dir of Tng, BuPers, for Chief. NavPcrs, I Jul49; Ltr, Granger to Cmdr Luther Heinz, 3 Aug 49; 

Ltr, Heinz to Granger, 18 Aug 49. All in Pers 42, BuPcrsRecs. Sec also lnterv, author with Nelson. 26 May 69. 

and Ltr, Nelson to author. 10 Feb 70, both in CMH files. 

6)Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to Cmdt, All Continental Naval Dists, 17 Mar 50, Pees 42, BuPcrsRccs; Memo, 

Under SccNav for Chmn, PPB, 22 Dec 49. PPB 291.2. 

66Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22 Dec 49, PPB 291.2. 

67For a public expression of these sentiments sec, for example, Ltr, Capt R. B. Ellis, Policy Control Br, 

SuPers, to President of Birmingham, Ala .. Branch, NAACP, 30 Mar 50, Pcrs 66 MM. GcnRecsNav. 
416 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

TABLE 8-BLACK MANPOWER. U.S. NAVY 

A. Enlisc~d Su~ngch 

Year 

9~9 ..... • . .. . ... . . .. .. .•.... 

1950 .. . ..•..... . . .... . . .•. . .. 

195 1 .. .. .•.... . .... . ......... 

1952 .. ............. . .. . . ... . . 

1953 ...... . . ........... ..... . 

1954 ....... . ........ .. ...... . 

1955 ....... .. .•. . .... . ....... 

1956 .................. . ..... . 

1957 .......... .. ............ . 

1958 ........................ . 

1959 ........ .. .........•. . ... 

1960 ... ...... ............... . 

Tolaf Strength 

363.622 

329,114 

656.37 1 

728.5 11 

698,367 

635. 103 

574,157 

586,782 

593.022 

558.955 

547.236 

544,323 

13 . Percentage of Blacks Enliscecl in Steward's and Ocher Branches 

Year 

1949 ...... • ... .• .... . . . . .... . 

1950 ... . .. .. ... . .... . ... .... . 

195 1 ......... .. • .... •••. ..... 

1952 . . .. . ................... . 

1953 ........ ........ • ........ 

1954 ........................ . 

1955 ........ ..... .. ......... . 

1956 .................... .... . 

1957 ... . ..... .. . .... . .. .. ... . 

1958 ........................ . 

C. ff ~r Strength (Selected Y cars) 

Year 

1949 .... . ...... • .. ... ... . . .. . 

195 1 ......•.... • . .. . • ... • .... 

1953 .... ..•... . . .... . ... . .... 

1955 . ..... . ....•.... . . ....... 

1960 .. ... ................... . 

Slecurlfd's Brtmch 

65. 12 

57.07 

55.27 

54.95 

51.73 

53.43 

51.19 

25.38 

21.66 

23.35 

lllacR OfficcrJ on A Clive Duly 

19 

23 

53 

8 1 

149 

llfack StrMgll> 

17.051 

lif .858 

17,604 

23.010 

24,7)4 

2if.236 

30.623 

37.308 

38.222 

30.978 

30.098 

26.760 

P~rc t 

BfacR 

4.5 

3. 7 

2. 7 

3.2 

3.5 

3.8 

5.3 

6.3 

6.4 

5.7 

5.5 

4.9 

Olher Branches 

34.88 

42.93 

44.73 

45.05 

48.27 

48.57 

48.81 

74.62 

78.34 

76.65 

7'tuol 0/Jicers 

45,464 

66,323 

78.095 

71.591 

Source: BuP~rs. Personnel Statistics Bran<h. S<e csr«ially DuPers. "M~mo on DiKciminacion of the Negro." 24 Jan 1? . BAF2- 0t4. BuP~rsTcchnicallibrary. All figur~s r~pr~s~nc yearly averages. 

of the Defense Department's program fot the qualitative distribution of manpower. Each service was required to accept 24 percent of all recruits in group IV 

from fiscal year 1953 to 1956 , 18 percent in fiscal year 1957, and 12 percent 

thereafter. Between 1953 and 1956 the Navy accepted well above the required 

24 percent of group IV men, but in fiscal year 1957 took only 15 .1 percent, and 

in 1958 only 6.8 percenc. In 1958, with the knowledge of the Secretary of 

Defense, all the services tOok in fewer of the group IV 's than the distribution 

program required, but justified the reduction on the grounds that declining 

strength made it necessary to emphasize high quality in recruits. In a move endorsed by the Navy, the Air Force finally requested in 1959 that the qualitative 

distribution program be held in abeyance. On the basis of this request the Navy 

temporarily ceased to accept all group IV and some group III men, but resumed 
INTEGRATION IN THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY 417 

recruiting them when it seemed likely 

that the Secretary of Defense would 

refuse the request.68 

The correlation between the rise and 

fall of the group IV enlistments and the 

percentage of Negroes in the Navy 

shows that all the increases in black 

strength between 1952 and 1959 came 

not through the Navy's publicized and 

organized effort to attract the qualified 

black volunteers it' had promised the 

Fahy Committee, but from the men 

forced upon it by the Defense Department's distribution program. The correlation also lends credence to the 

charges of some of the civil rights critics 

who saw another reason for the shortage 

of Negroes. They claimed that there 

CHRISTMAS IN KOREA 1950 h~d been no drop in the number of ap- . pltcants but that fewer Negroes were 

being accepted by Navy recruiters. One NAACP official claimed that Negroes 

were "getting the run around." Those who had fulfilled all enlistment requirements were not being informed, and others were being given false information by recruiters. He concluded that the Navy was operating under an unwritten policy of filling recruit quotas with whites, accepting Negroes only when 

whites were unavailable.69 If these accusations were true, the Navy was denying 

itself the services of highly qualified black applicants at a time when the Defense 

Department's qualitative distribution program was forcing it to take large 

numbers of the less gifted. Certainly the number of Negroes capable of moving 

up the career and promotion ladder was reduced and the Navy left vulnerable to 

further charges of discrimination. 

As for the shortage of officers, Nelson cited the awareness among candidates 

that promotions were slower for blacks in the Navy than in the other services 

where there was "less caste and class to buck.'' 70 Nelson was aware that out of 

the 2, 700 blacks who had indicated an interest in the reserve officer training 

program in 1949 only 250 actually took the aptitude tests. Of these, only two 

passed the tests and one of these was later rejected for poor eyesight. An Urban 

League spokesman believed that some failed to take the tests out of fear of 

failure but that many harbored a suspicion that the program was not entirely 

open to all regardless of race. 7 1 Reinforcing this suspicion was the fact that, 

68BuPcrs, ''Memo on Discrimination of the Negro.'' 24 January 1959. Pers A 1224 , BuPers Tech Library. 69Lrr, Exec Sccy, Birmingham, Ala., Branch, NAACP, to Chief, NavPcrs, 14 Mar 50, Pers A. 

GenRccsNav. 701nterv, Nichols with Nelson. 1953. in Nichols Collection: Ltr, Nelson to author. 10 Feb 70; both in 

CMH files. 71Quotcd in Memo, DirofTng, BuPers:, for Chief, NavPets, 1 Jul49. Pers42, GenRecsNav. 
418 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

despite the intentions of the Bureau of ~ 

Naval Personnel and the Navy's increasing control over the appointment process, as of 1965 not a single Negro had ~ 

been appointed to any of the 150-man 

state selection committees on·reserve officer trainingY Also to be considered, 

as th,e American Civil Liberties Union 

later pointed out, was the promotion 

record of black officers. As late as 195 7 

no black officer had ever commanded a 

ship, and while both black and white 

officers started up the same promotion 

ladder, the blacks were usually transferred out of the line into staff billets. 73 

Given the pressure on the personnel 

bureau to develop some respectable 

black manpower statistics, it is unlikely 

that the lack of educated, black recruits REARMING AT SEA. Ordnancemen at 

can be blamed on widespread subter- work on the deck of the USS Philipfuge at the recruiting level. Far more pine Sea, off Korea, October 1950. 

likely is the explanation offered by 

Under Secretary Kimball, that the black community distrusted the Navy. 74 First 

apparent in the 1940's, this distrust lasted throughout the next decade as young 

Negroes continued to show :a general apathy toward the Navy, which at times 

turned into open hostility. In September 1961 the Chief of Naval Personnel 

reported that recruiters were not infrequently being treated to "booing, hissing 

and other disorderly conduct'' when they tried to discuss the opportunities for 

naval careers before black audiences. 75 

The Navy's poor reputation in the black community centered on the continued existence of the racially separate servants' branch, in the eyes of many the 

symbol of the service's racial exclusiveness. The Steward's Branch remained 

predominantly black. In 1949 it had 10,499 Negroes, 4,707 Filipinos, 74 1 ocher 

nonwhites, and 1 white man. Chief stewards continued to be denied the grade 

of chief petty officer, on the grounds that since stewards were not authorized co 

exercise military command over ochers than stewards because of their lack of 

military training, chief stewards were not chiefs in the military sense of the 

word . This difference in auth ority also explained, as the Chief of Naval Personnel put it, why as a general rule chief stewards were nor quartered with other 

72Memo for Red. Evans, 23 Jun 6~. sub: NROTC Boards, ASD/M 291.2. 

73Ltr, Exec Dir, ACLU, to SecNav, 26 Nov~ 7, GenRecsNav. 74

Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22 Dec 49. sub: Implementation of Executive Order 9981. PPB 

291.2. 

])Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Pees B. 23 Sep 61, copy in Harris Wofford Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library. 
INTEGRATION IN THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY 419 

BROADENING SKILLS. Stewards on the USS Valley Forge volunteer for classes 

leading to advancement in other fields, Korea, 1950. 

petty officers. 76 These distinctions were true also for stewards in the first, second, and third classes, a fact in their case symbolized by differences in uniform. 

Most of the thousands of black stewards continued to be recruited, trained, and 

employed exclusively in that branch, and thus for over half the Negroes-65 

percent-in the 1949 Navy the chance for advancement was severely limited and 

the chance to qualify for a different job almost nonexistent. 

The Navy instituted several changes in the branch in the wake of the Fahy 

Committee's recommendations. On 25 July 1949 the Chief of Naval Personnel 

ordered all chief stewards designated chief petty officers with all the prerogatives 

of that status; in precedence they came immediately after chief dental technicians, 77 who were at the bottom of the list. That the change was limited to chief 

stewards did not go unnoticed. Joseph Evans of the Fahy Committee staff 

charged that the bureau ''seemed to have ordered this to accede to the committee's recommendations never intending to go beyond Chief Stewards. " 78 

Nelson, by now a son of unofficial ombudsman and gadfly for black sailors, 

urged his superiors to broaden the reform, and Kimball warned Admiral 

Sprague that limiting the change to chief stewards might be "justified on the 

7

6-rcstimony of Vice Adm William M. Fcchtclcr Before the President's Committee on Equaiiry of Treat· 

mcnt :tnd Opportunity in the Armed Services (the Fahy Cmtc). 28 Mar49. p. 18. 7713uPcrs Cir Ltr II ~-49. 2~ Jui 49. 78Mcrno. Evans lor Fahy Cmte, 23 Aug 1!9. sub: Progress in Navy, Fahy Papers, Truman Library. 
420 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940- 1965 

literal statement of intention, but is vulnerable to criticism of continued 

discrimination." Without compelling reasons to the contrary, he added, "I do 

not feel that we can afford to risk any possible impression of reluctant implementation of the spirit of the directive." 79 

Admiral Sprague got the point, and on 30 August he announced that effective with the new year, stewards-first, second , and third class-would be 

designated petty officers with appropriate pay, prerogatives, and precedence, 

and that their uniforms would be changed to conform to those of other petty officers. He also amended the bureau's manual to allow commanding officers to 

change the ratings of stewards without headquarters approval, thus enlarging 

the opportunity for steward s, in all other respects qualified, to transfer into 

other ratings. 

80 These reforms brought about a slow but steady change in the 

assignment of black sailors. Between January 1950 and August 1953. the 

percentage of Negroes in the general service rose from 42 to 47 percent of the 

Navy's 23,000 man black strength, with a corresponding drop in the percentage 

of those assigned to the Steward's Branch. 8 1 

Yet these reforms were modest in terms of the pressing need for a substantive change in the racial composition of the Steward's Branch. Despite the 

changes in assignment policy. the Steward's Branch was still nearly 6 5 percent 

black in 1952, and the rest were mostly Filipino citizens under contract. 

Secretary of the Navy Kimball's observation that 133 stewards had transferred 

out of the branch in a recent four-month period hardly promised any speedy 

change in the current percentagesY In fact there was evidence even at that late 

date that some staff members in the personnel bureau were working at crosspurposes to the Navy's expressed policy. Worried about the shortages of 

volunteers for the Steward's Branch, a group of officials had met in August 195 1 

to discuss ways of improving branch morale. Some suggested publicizing the 

branch to the black press and schools, showing that Negroes were in all branches 

of the Navy including the Steward's. They also studied a pamphlet called "The 

Advantages of Stewards Dut y in the Navy" that gave nine reasons why a man 

should become a steward. 83 

Obviously the Navy had to set a steady course if it intended any lasting racial 

reform of the Steward's Branch, but its leaders seemed ambivalent toward the 

problem. Despite his earlier efforts to raise the status of stewards. Kimball, in a 

variation on an old postwar argument, tried to show that the exclusiveness of the 

79Memo, Under SccNav for Chief, NavPcrs, 10 Aug 49. MM (I) GcnRecsNav. 80BuPers Cir Ltr 14 1-49, 30 Aug 49. Sec also Memo, Under SccNav for Chmn, PPB, 22 Dec 49, sub: Jm. 

plcmcntation of Exccurivc Order 9981. PPB 29 1.2; Memo, Chief, NavPcrs, for SccNav, 4 May 50, sub: 

Equality of Treatment and Opportunity. Pers 42, GenRecsNav. 81Memo, Dir, Plans and Policy, BuPcrs, for Capt Brooke Schumm, USN, PPB, 17 Jul 50, sub: Secretary of 

Defense Semi-Annual Report, Negro Enlisted Personnel Data for, Pcrs 148; Memo, Head, Strength and 

Statistics Br, BuPcrs, for Head , Technical Info Br, BuPers. 25 Aug 53. sub: Information Requested by LCDR 

D. D. Nelson Concerning Negro Strcng(h, Pers A14; borh in BuPcrsRecs. 82Kimball was sworn in as Secretary of the Navy on 31 Jul y 1951. Ltr, SccNav to Granger, 19 Nov 52, SecNav Iiles. GcnRecsNav. · 83BuPers. Plans and Policy Div, " Review of Suggestions and Recommendations to Improve Standards, 

Morale, and Attitudes Toward Stewards Branch of U.S. Navy" (ca. 2 Aug 51), BuPersRecs. 
INTEGRATION IN THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY 421 

Steward's Branch actually worked to the Negro's advantage. As he explained to 

Lester Granger in November 1952, any action to effect radical or wholesale 

changes in ratings "would not only tend to reduce the efficiency of the Navy, 

but also in many instances be to the disadvantage or detriment of the individuals concerned, particularly those in the senior Steward ratings.' '

84 Supporting this line of argument, the Chief of Naval Personnel announced the 

reenlistment figures for the Steward's Branch-over 80 percent during the 

Korean War period. These figures, Vice Admiral James L. Holloway, Jr., added, 

proved the branch to be the most popular in the Navy and offered "a rational 

measure of the state of the morale and job satisfaction.' ~ 

These explanations still figured prominently in the Navy's 1961 defense of 

its racial statistics. Discussing the matter at a White House meeting of civil 

rights leaders, the Chief of Naval Personnel pointed out that all the black 

stewards could be replaced with Filipinos, but the Navy had refrained from such 

a course for several reasons. The branch still had the highest reenlistment rate. It 

provided jobs for those group IV men the Navy was obliged to accept but could 

never use in technical billets. Without the opportunity provided by the branch, 

moreover, "many of the rated black stewards would probably not achieve a 

petty officer rating at all. ''86 

However well founded these arguments were, they did not satisfy the Navy's 

critics, who continued to press for the establishment of one recruitment standard and the assignment of men on the basis of interest and training rather than 

race. Lester Granger, for example, warned Secretary Kimball of the skepticism 

that persisted among sections of the black community: ''As long as that branch 

(the Steward's Branch] is composed entirely of nonwhite personnel, the Navy is 

apt to be held by some to be violating its own stated policy. " 87 To Kimball's 

successor, Robert B. Anderson, 88 Granger was even more blunt. The Steward's 

Branch, he declared, was "a constant irritant to the Negro public." He saw 

some logical reason for the continued concentration of Negroes in the branch 

but added "logic does not necessarily imply wisdom and I sincerely believe that 

it is unwise from the standpoint of efficiency and public relations to continue 

the Stewards Branch on irs present basis. ''89 

Granger's suggestion for change was straightforward. He wanted the Bureau 

of Naval Personnel to find a way to introduce a sufficiently large number of 

whites into the branch to transform its racial composition. The task promised to 

be difficult if the charges leveled in the Detroit Free Press were accurate. In May 

MLtr, SecNav for Granger, 19 Nov 52, SccNav files, GenRecsNav. 

B)Ltrs: Chief, NavPers, to James C. Evans, OSD, 19 Juo 53. aod Granger, 28 Jul 53, both in P 8 (4), 

BuPersRecs. 86Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Pcrs B. 23 Sep 61, Harris Wofford Collection. J. F. Kennedy Library. See also 

Memo, Chief. NavPers, for ASO/M. 29 Mar 61, sub: Stewards in U.S. Navy. Pers 8 (4), BuPersRecs; Memo, 

Special Assr to SecDcf, Adam Yarmolinsky. for Frederic Dutton, Special Asst to President, 31 Oct 61, sub: 

Yarmolinsky Memo of October 26. Harris Wofford Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library. 87Ltr, Gran~;er to SecNav, 24 Oct 52. SecNav files, GenRecsNav. 88Secretary Anderson. appointed by President Eisenhower, became Secretary of the Navy on 4 February 

1953. 

89I.tr, ,9ranger to SecNav, 24 Apr 53. SecNav fi les. GenRccsNav. 
422 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

1953 the paper reported incidents of naval recruiting officers who, "by one ruse 

or another," were shunting young volunteers, sometimes without their 

knowledge, into the Steward's Branch.9° 

Granger's suggestions were taken up by Secretary Anderson, who announced his intention of integrating the Steward's Branch and ordered the 

Chief of Naval Personnel to draw up plans to that end.

91 To devise some practical measures for handling the problem, the personnel bureau brought back to 

active duty three officers who had been important to the development of the 

Navy's 1946 integration policy. Their study produced three recommendations: 

abolish the segregation of the Steward's Branch from the general service and 

separate recruitment for its members; consider consolidating the branch with 

the predominantly white Commissary Branch; and change the steward's insignia.92 

The group acknowledged that the Steward's Branch was a "sore spot with 

the Negroes, and is our weakest position from the standpont of Public Relations,'' and two of their recommendations were obviously aimed at immediate 

improvement of public relations. Combining the messmen and commissary 

specialists would of course create an integrated branch, which Granger 

estimated would be only 20 percent black, and would probably provide additional opportunities for promotions, but in the end it could not mask the fact 

that a high proportion of black sailors were employed in food service and valet 

positions. Nor was it clear how changing the familiar crescent insignia, symbolic 

of the steward's duties, would change the image of a separate group that still 

performed the most menial duties. Long-term reform, everyone agreed, 

demanded the presence of a significant number of whites in the branch, and 

there was strong evidence that the general service contained more than a few 

group IV white sailors. The group's proposal to abolish separate recruiting 

would probably increase the number of blacks in the general service and 

eliminate the possibility that unsuspecting black recruits would be dragooned 

into a messman's career; both were substantial reforms but did not guarantee 

that whites would be attracted or assigned to the branch. 

Admiral Holloway was concerned about this latter point, which dominated 

his discussions with the Secretary of the Navy on 1 September 1953. He had, he 

told Anderson, discussed with his recruiting specialists the possibility of 

recruiting white sailors for the branch, and while they all agreed that whites 

must not be induced to join by "improper procedures," such as preferential 

recruitment to escape the draft, they felt that whites could be attracted to 

steward duty by skillful recruiters, especially in areas of the country where industrial integration had already been accomplished. His bureau was considering 

the abolition of separate recruiting, but to make specific recommendations on 

matters involving the stewards he had created an ad hoc committee, under the 

9°Detroit Free Press, May 16, 1953. 

91UP News Release, September 21, 1953. copy in CMH. 92Ltr, Cmdr Durwood W. Gilmore, USNR ct al., to Chief, NavPers, Vice Adm J. L. Holloway, Jr. , 31 Aug 

53, P 8 (4), BuPcrsRccs. 
INTEGRATION IN THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY 423 

INTEGRATED STEWARDS CLASS GRADUATES, GREAT LAKES, 1953 

Deputy Chief of Naval Personnel and composed of representatives of the other 

bureaus. When he received this committee's views, Holloway promised to take 

''definite administrative action.' '

93 

The three recommendations of the reservist experts did not survive intact the 

ad hoc committee's scrutiny. At the committee's suggestion, Holloway rejected 

the proposed merger of the commissary and steward functions on the grounds 

that such a move was unnecessary in an era of high reenlistment. He also decided that stewards would retain their branch insignia. He did approve, 

however, in a decision announced on 28 February 1954, putting an end to the 

separate recruitment of stewards with the exception of the contract enlistment of 

Filipino citizens. As Anderson assured Congressman Adam Clayton Powell of 

New York, only after recruit training and ·' 'with full knowledge of the opportunities in various categories of administrative specialties' ' would an enlistee be 

allowed to volunteer for messman's duty.

9" 

Admiral Holloway promised a further search for ways to eliminate "points 

of friction" regarding the stewards, and naval officials discussed the problem 

with civil rights leaders and Defense Department officials on several occasions in 

93Memo, Chief. NavPcrs, for SccNav, 1 Scp 53. sub: Mr. Granger's Visit and Related Matters, Pers, GcnRccsNav. 

94Ltr, SccNav to Congressman Adam C. Powell, 19 Mar 54, SccNav files, GcnRccsNav. 
424 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

the next years ·>~ The Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, Adam Yarmolinsky, reported in 1961 that the Bureau of Naval Personnel "was not 

sanguine" about recruiting substantial numbers of white seamen for the 

Steward's Branch.\16 In answer, the Chief of Naval Personnel could only point 

out that no matter what their qualifications or ambitions all men assigned to the 

Steward's Branch were volunteers. As one commentator observed, white sailors 

were very rarely attracted to the messmen's field because of its reputation as a 

black specialty .'>7 

Nevertheless, by 1961 a definite pattern of change had emerged in the 

Steward's Branch . The end of separate recruitment drastically cut the number of 

Negroes entering the rating, while the renewed emphasis on transferring eligible chief stewards to other specialties somewhat reduced the number of Negroes 

already in the branch. Between 1956 and 1961, some 600 men out of the 1,800 

tested transferred to other raring groups or fields. The substantial drop in black 

strength resulting from these changes combined with a corresponding rise in the 

number of contract messmen from the western Pacific region reduced for the 

first rime in some thirty years Negroes in the Steward's Branch to a minority. 

Even for those remaining in the branch, life changed considerably. Separate 

berthing for stewards, always justified on the grounds of different duties and 

hours, was discontinued, and the amount of time spent by stewards at sea, with 

the varied military work that sea duty involved, was increased.98 

If these changes caused by the increased enlistment of stewards from the 

western Pacific relieved the Steward's Branch of irs reputation as the black man's 

navy, they also perpetuated the notion that servants' duties were for persons of 

dark complexion. The debate over a segregated branch that had engaged the 

civil rights leaders and the Navy since 1932 was over, bur it had left a residue of 

ill will; some were bitter at what they considered the listless pace of reform, a 

pace which left the impression that the service had been forced to change against 

its will. To some extent the Navy in the 1950's failed to capitalize on its early 

achievements hecause it had for so long missed the point of the integrationists' 

arguments about the stewards. In the fifties the Navy expended considerable 

time and energy advertising for black officer candidates and recruits whom they 

guaranteed a genuinely equal chance to participate in all specialties, but these 

effortS were to some extent dismissed by critics as not germane. In 1950, for example , only 114 Negroes served in the glamorous submarine assignments and 

even fewer in the naval air service.

99 Yet this obvious underrepresentarion 

caused no great outcry from the black community. What did cause bitterness 

'>)See, for example, ASD/ M. Thursda)• Reports. 7 Jan ~4 and 12 Apr 56. copies in Dcp ASD (Civil Rights) 

files; sec also Memo, Chief. NavPcrs, for Special Am to SccDd, 29 Mar 61, sub: Stewards in U.S. Navy, 

BuPcrsRecs. 96Mcmo. Adam Yarmolinsky for Fred Dutron, 31 Oct 61. sub: Yarrnolinsky Memo of October 26, Harris 

Wofford Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library. 

'>7Greenbcrg. Race Relatiom a11d American Law, p. 359. 

Q

8Mcmo. Chief. NavPcrs. for Special Asst to SecDef. 29 Mar 61, sub: Stewards in U.S. Navy, Pers 8 (4}. 

GenRecsNav. 

99Thc Navy commissioned its first black pilot. Ens. Jesse L. Brown. in 1950. He was killed in anion in 

Korea. 
INTEGRATION IN THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY 425 

and protest in an era of aroused racial pride was the fact that servants' duties fell 

almost exclusively on nonwhite Americans. That these duties were popular- the 

80 percent reenlistment rate in the Steward 's Branch continued throughout the 

decade and the transfer rate into the branch almost equaled the transfer 

our- was disregarded by many of the more articulate spokesmen, who considered the branch an insult to the black public. As Congressman Powell informed the Navy in 1953, " no one is interested in today's world in fighting 

communism with a frying pan or shoe polish.'' '

00 Although statistics showed 

WAVE RECRUITS, Naval Training Center, Bainbridge, Maryland, 1953. , nearly half the black sailors employed in other than menial tasks, Powell voiced 

the mood of a large segment of t he black community. 

The Fahy Committee had acknowledged that manpower statistics alone were 

not a reliable index of equal opportunity. Convinced that Negroes were getting 

a full and equal chance to enlist in the general service and compete for officer 

commissions, the committee had approved the Navy's policy, trusting to time 

and equal opportunity to produce the desired result. Unfortunately for the 

Navy, there would be many critics both in and out of government in the 1960's 

who disagreed with the committee's trust in time a~d good intentions, for equal 

100ltr, Powell to john Floberg, Asst SecNav for Air, 29 Jun 53, SecNav files, GenRecsNav. 
426 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

opportunity would remain very much a 

matter of numbers and percentages. In 

an era when a premium would be 

placed on the size of minority membership, the palm would go to the other 

services. "The blunt fact is," Granger 

reminded the Secretary of the Navy in 

1954, "that as a general rule the most 

aspiring Negro youth are apt to have 

the least interest in a Navy career, 

chiefly because the Army and Air Force 

have up to now captured the 

spotlight.' '

101 A decade later the statement still held. 

It was ironic that black youth remained aloof from the Navy in the 

1950's when the way of life for Negroes 

on shipboard and at naval bases had 

ADMIRALGRAVELY(l973 portrait). definitely taken .a turn for the bett~r. The general servtce was completely tntegrated, although the black proportion, 4.9 percent in 1960, was still far less 

than might reasonably be expected, considering the black population. 102 

Negroes were being trained in every job classification and attended all the 

Navy's technical schools. Although not yet represented in proportionate 

numbers in the top grades within every rating, Negroes served in all ratings in 

every branch, a fact favorably noticed in the metropolitan press. 103 Black officers, still shockingly out of proportion to black strength, were not much more 

so than in the other services and were serving more often with regular commissions in the line as well as on the staff. Their lack of representation in the upper 

ranks demonstrated that the climb to command was slow and arduous even 

when the discriminatory tactics of earlier times had been removed. In 1961 the 

Navy could finally announce that a black officer, Lt. Comdr. Samuel L. Gravely, 

Jr. , had been ordered to command a destroyer escort, the USS Falgout. 104 

But how were these changes being accepted among the rank and file? Comments from official sources and civil rights groups alike showed the leaven of 

racial tolerance at work throughout the service. 10> Reporter Lee Nichols, inter101Ltr. Granger tO SccNav, 7 Jan ~4. SecNav files. GenRecsNav. 102Memo, ASD/ M for SA ct al.. 21 Nov ~I. sub: Manuscript on the Negro in the Armed Forces. Sec De£ 

291.2. 103See New York 1-lera/dTribtme, December 2, 1957. and New York Post, March 14 , 1957. 104Gravcly would eventually become the first black admiral in the U.S. Navy. 

IO)Sec. for example, Ltr, Exec Secy, President's Cmte on Equal Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed 

Services, to CNO. 21 Jun 49. FC file; Memo, Chief. NavPers, for SccNav, BuPcrsRccs; Memo, ASD/M for SA 

et al.. 21 Nov 51, sub: Manuscript on the Negro in the Armed Forces. SecDcf 291.2; Ltr, Exec Secy, ACLU. to 

SecNav. 26 Nov 57. SecNav files, GcnRecsNav. 
INTEGRATION IN THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY 427 

viewing members of all the services in 1953, 106 found that whites expected 

blacks to prove themselves in their assignments while blacks were skeptical that 

equal opportunities for assignment were really open to them. Yet the Nichols 

interviews reveal a strain of pride and wonderment in the servicemen at the profound changes they had witnessed. . 

In time integrated service became routine throughout the Navy, and instances of Negroes in command of integrated units increased. Bigots of both 

races inevitably remained, and the black community continued to resent the 

separate Steward's Branch, but the sincerity of the Navy's promise to integrate 

the service seemed no longer in doubt. 

106Nichols's sampling. presented in the form of approximately a hundred interviews with men and women 

from all the services, was completely unscientific and informal and was undertaken for the preparation of his 

book. Breakthrough on the Color Front. Considering their timing, the interviews supply an interesting 

sidelight to the: integration period. They arc included in the Nichols Collection. CMH . 
CHAPTER 17 

The Army Integrates 

The integration of the United States Army was not accomplished by executive fiat or at the demand of the electorate. Nor was it the result of any particular victory of the civil righ ts advocates over the racists. It came about primarily because the definition of military efficiency spelled out by the Fahy Committee and demonstrated by troops in the heat of battle was finally accepted by 

Army leaders. The Army justified its policy changes in the name of efficiency, as 

indeed it had always, but this time efficiency led the service unmistakably 

toward integration. 

Race and Efficiency: 1950 

The Army's postwar planners based their low estimate of the black soldier's 

ability on the collective performance of the segregated black units in World War 

II and assumed that social unrest would result from mixing the races. The Army 

thus accepted an economically and administratively inefficient segregated force 

in peacetime to preserve what it considered to be a more dependable fighting 

machine for war. Insistence on the need for segregation in the name of military 

efficiency was also useful in rationalizing the prejudice and thoughtless 

adherence to traditional practice which obviously played a part in the Army's 

tenacious defense of its policy. 

An entirely different conclusion, however, could be drawn from the same set 

of propositions. The Fahy Committee, for example, had clearly demonstrated 

the inefficiency of segregation, and more to the point, some senior Army officials, in particular Secretary Gray and Chief of Staff Collins, had come to question the conventional pattern. Explaining later why he favored integration 

ahead of many of his contemporaries, Collins drew on his World War II experience. The major black ground units in World War II, and to a lesser degree 

the 99th Pursuit Squadron,. he declared, "did not work out." Nor, he concluded, did the smaller independent black units, even those commanded by 

black officers, who were burdened with problems of discipline and inefficiency. 

On the other hand, the integrated infantry platoons in Europe, with which Collins had personal experience, worked well. His observations had convinced him 

that it was "pointless" to support segregated black units, and while the matter 

had " nothing to do with sociology itself," he reasoned that if integration 

worked at the platoon level ·'why not on down the line?'' The best plan, he believed, was to assign two Negroes to each squad in the Army, always assuming 

that the quota limiting the total number of black soldiers would be preserved. 1 

1

1nterv, author with Collins. 
THE ARMY INTEGRATES 429 

But the Army had promised the Fahy Committee in April 1950 it would 

abolish the quota. If carried out, such an agreement would complicate an 

orderly and controlled integration, and Collins's desire for change was clearly 

tempered by his concern for order and control. So long as peacetime manpower 

levels remained low and inductions through the draft limited, a program such as 

the one contemplated by the Chief of Staff was feasible , but any sudden wartime expansion would change a ll that. Fear of such a sudden change combined 

with the strong opposition to imegration still shared by most Army officials to 

keep the staff from any initiative toward integration in the period immediately 

after the Fahy Committee adjourned. 

Even before Gray and Collins completed their negotiations with the Fahy 

Committee, they were treated by the Chamberlin Board to yet another indication of the scope of Army staff opposition to integration. Gray had appointed a 

panel of senior officers under Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Chamberlin on 18 September 

1949 in fulfillment of his promise to review the Army's racial policy periodically 

"in the light of changing conditions and experiences of this day and time." 2 

After sitting four months and consulting more than sixty major Army officials 

and some 280 officers and men, the board produced a comprehensive summary 

of the Army's racial status based on test scores, enlistment rates, school figures, 

venereal disease rates, opinion surveys, and the like. 

The conclusions and recommendations of the Chamberlin Board represent 

perhaps the most careful and certainly the last apologia for a segregated Army. 3 

The Army's postwar racial policy and related directives, the board assured 

Secretary Gray, were sound, were proving effective, and should be continued in 

force. It saw only one objection to segregated units: black units had an unduly 

high proportion of men with low classification test scores, a situation, it believed, that could be altered by raising the entrance level and improving training and leadership. At any rate, the board declared, this disadvantage was a 

minor one compared to the advantages of an organization that did not force 

Negroes into competition they were unprepared to face, did not provoke the 

resentment of white soldiers with the consequent risk of lowered combat effectiveness, and avoided placing b lack officers and noncommissioned officers in 

command of white troops, ''a position which only the exceptional Negro could 

successfully fill.'' 

A decision on these matters, the board stated, had to be based on combat effectiveness, not the use of black manpower, and what constituted maximum effectiveness was best left to the judgment of war-tested combat leaders. These 

men, "almost without exception," vigorously opposed integration. Ignoring 

2

Mcmo. SA for Lt Gcn Stephen J. Chamberlin, 30 Nov 49, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the 

Army. CSGPA 291.2. Sec also Dir, P&A. Summary Sheet to CofS, 2 Nov 49. sub: Board to Study the Utiliza. 

tion of Negro Manpower in Peacetime Army. CSGPA 291.2, and TAG to Chamberlin, 18 Nov 49, same sub. 

AG 334 (17 Nov 49). In addition to Chamberlin, the board included Maj. Gen. Withers A. Buress. 

commanding general of the Infantry Center; Maj . Gen. John M. Divine, commanding general of 9th Infantry 

Division. Fon Dix: and Col. M. VanVoorst, Personnel and Administration Division, as recorder without vote. 

3Memo, Gen Chamberlin et al. for SA, 9 Feb 50. sub: Repon of Board of Officers on Utilization of Negro 

Manpower in the Army, AG 291.2 (6 Dec 49). A copy of the report and many of the related and supporting 

documents arc in CMH. 
430 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

the Army's continuing negotiations with the Fahy Committee on the matter, 

the board called for retaining the 10 percent quota. To remove the quota 

without imposing a higher entrance standard, it argued, would result in an influx of Negroes "with a corresponding deterioration of combat efficiency." In 

short, ignoring the political and budgetary realities of the day, the board called 

on Secretary Gray to repudiate the findings of the Fahy Committee and the 

stipulations of Executive Order 9981 and to maintain a rigidly segregated service 

with a carefully regulated percentage of black members. 

While Gray and Collins let the recommendations of the Chamberlin Board 

go unanswered, they did very little to change the Army's racial practices in the 

year following their agreements with the Fahy Committee. The periodic increase 

in the number of critical specialties for which Negroes were to be trained and 

freely assigned did not materialize. The number of trained black specialists increased, and some were assigned to white units, but this practice, while substantially different from the Gillem Board's idea of limiting such integration to 

overhead spaces, nevertheless produced similar results. Black specialists continueo to be assigned to segregated units in the majority of cases, and in the 

minds of most commanders such assignment automatically limited black 

soldiers to certain jobs and schools no matter what their qualifications. Kenworthy's blunt conclusion in May 1951 was that the Army had not carried out the 

policy it had agreed to. 4 Certainly the Army staff had failed to develop a successful mechanism for gauging its commanders' compliance with its new policy. 

Despite the generally progressive sentiments of General Collins and Secretary 

Gray's agreement with the Fahy Committee, much of the Army clung to old 

sentiments and practices for the same old reasons. 

The catalyst for the sudden shift away from these sentiments and practices 

was the Korean War. Ranking among the nation's major conflicts, the war 

caused the Army to double in size in five months. By June 1951 it numbered 1.6 

million, with 230,000 men serving in Korea in the Eighth Army. This vast expansion of manpower and combat commitment severely tested the Army's racial 

policy and immediately affected the racial balance of the quota-free Army. 

When the quota was lifted in April 1950, Negroes accounted for 10.2 percent of 

the total enlisted strength; by August this figure reached 11.4 percent. On 1 

January 1951, Negroes comprised 11.7 percent of the Army, and in December 

1952 the ratio was 13 .2 percent. The cause of this striking rise in black strength 

was the large number of Negroes among wartime enlistments. The percentage 

of Negroes among those enlisting in the Army for the first time jumped from 

8.2 in March 1950 to 25.2 in August, averaging 18 percent of all first-term 

enlistments during the first nine months of the war. Black reenlistment increased from 8. 5 to 12.9 percem of the total reenlistment during the same 

period, and the percentage of black draftees in the total number of draftees supplied by Selective Service averaged 13 percent. 5 

''Kenworthy, "The Case Against Army Segregation.'' p . 32. 

$Memo, G- 1 for VCofS. sub: Negro Statistics, 16 Jun ~0-6 Oct ~0. CS 291.2 Negro: idem for G-3. 18 

Apr 51. sub: Training Spaces for Negro Personnel. OPS 291.2; Memo, Chief, Mil Opcrs Management Branch, 

G- 1, for G- I, I Feb 51, sub: Distribution of Negro Manpower in the Army, G- 1 291.2, and Memo, Chief, 

Procurement and Distribution Div. G - 1, lor G- 1, 20 Oct 53. same sub and file . 
THE ARMY INTEGRATES 431 

MOVING UP. 25th Division infantrymen head for the front, Korea, ]ttly 1950. 

The effect of these increases on a segregated army was tremendous. By April 

1951, black units throughout the Army were reporting large overstrengths, 

some as much as 60 percent over their authorized organization tables. 

Overstrength was particularly evident in the combat arms because of the steady 

increase in the number of black soldiers with combat occupational specialties. 

Largely assigned to service units during World War II-only 22 percent, about 

half the white percentage, were in combat units-Negroes after the war were 

assigned in ever-increasing numbers to combat occupational specialties in keeping with the Gillem Board recommendation that they be trained in all branches 

of the service. By 1950 some 30 percent of all black soldiers were in combat 

units, and by June 1951 they were being assigned to the combat branches in approximately the same percentage as white soldiers, 41 percent. 6 

The Chief of Staff's concern with the Army's segregation policy went 

beyond immediate problems connected with the sudden manpower increases. 

Speaking to Maj. Gen. Lewis A. Craig, the Inspector General, in August 1950, 

Collins declared that the Army's social policy was unrealistic and did not represent the views of younger Americans whose attitudes were much more relaxed 

6

STM- 30, Strength ofthc Army, Sep 50, Mar 51, and Jul 51. 
432 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

than those of the senior officers who established policy. Reporting Collins's 

comment to the staff, Craig went on to say the situation in Korea confirmed his 

own observations that mixing whites and blacks ''in reasonable proportions'' 

did not cause friction. Continued segregation, on the other hand, would force 

the Army to reinstate the old division-size black unit, with its ineffectiveness 

and frustrations, to answer the Negro's demand for equitable promotions and 

job opportunities. In short, both Collins and Craig agreed that the Army must 

eventual! y integrate, and they wanted the use of black servicemen restudied. 7 

Their view was at considerable variance with the attitude displayed by most 

officers on the Army staff and in the major commands in December 1950. His 

rank notwithstanding, Collins still had to persuade these men of the validity of 

his views before they would accept the necessity for integration. Moreover, with 

his concept of orderly and controlled social change threatened by the rapid rise 

in the number of black soldiers, Collins himself would need to assess the effects 

of racial mixing in a fluid manpower situation. These necessities explain the 

plethora of staff papers, special boards, and field investigations pertaining to 

the employment of black troops that characterized the next six months, a period 

during which every effort was made to convince senior officers of the practical 

necessity for integration. The Chief of Staff's exchange of views with the Inspector General was not circulated within the staff until December 1950. At that 

time the personnel chief, Lt. Gen. Edward H. Brooks, recommended reconvening the Chamberlin Board to reexamine the Army's racial policy in light of the 

Korean experience. Brooks wanted to hold off the review until February 1951 by 

which time he thought adequate data would be available from the Far East 

Command. His recommendation was approved, and the matter was returned to 

the same group which had so firmly rejected integration less than a year before. 8 

Even as the Chamberlin Board was reconvening, another voice was added to 

those calling for integration. Viewing the critical overstrength in black units, 

Assistant Secretary Earl D. Johnson recommended distributing excess black 

soldiers among other units of the Army. 

9 The response to his proposal was yet 

another attempt to avoid the dictates of the draft law and black enlistments. 

Maj. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe, the G-1, advised against integrating the 

organized white units on the grounds that experience gained thus far on the 

social impact of integration was inadequate to predict its effect on "overall 

Army efficiency.'' Since the Army could not continue assigning more men to 

the overstrength black units, McAuliffe wanted to organize additional black 

units to accommodate the excess, and he asked Maj. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, 

the G-3, to activate the necessary units. 10 

The chief of the Army Field Forces w·as even more direct. Integration was untimely, General Mark W. Clark advised, and the Army should instead reimpose 

the quota and push for speedy implementation of the Secretary of Defense's 

• 7IG Summary Sheet for CofS, 7 Dec :SO. sub: Policy Regarding Negro Segregation, CS 29 1.2 (7 Dec )0}. 

·'

8G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS. 18 Dec )0, sub: Policy Regarding Negro Segregation, G-1 291.2. 

9Mcmo, ASA for SA. 3 Apr) 1. sub: Present Overstrength in Segregated Units, G- 1 291.2. 10Merno, G-1 for CofS, 26 May) 1. sub: Present Ovcrstrength in Segregated Units; DF, G-1 for G- 3. 16 

Apr) 1, sub: Training Spaces for Negro Personnel; both in G-1 291.2. 
THE ARMY INTEGRATES 433 

directive on the qualitative distribution of manpower. 11 Clark's plea for a 

new quota was one of many circulating 

in the staff since black enlistment 

percentages started to rise. But time 

had run out on the quota as a solution 

to overstrength black units. Although 

the Army staff continued to discuss the 

need for the quota, and senior officials 

considered asking the President for permission to reinstitute it, the Secretary of 

Defense's acceptance of parity of enlistment standards had ·robbed the Army 

of any excuse for special treatment on 

manpower allotments. 12 

McAuliffe's recommendation for 

additional black units ran into serious 

· ._. ,· opposition and was not approved. 

Taylor's staff, concerned with the practical problems of Army organization, 

objected to the proposal, citing budget 

MEN OF BATIERY A, 159th Field Artillery Battalion, fire 105 -mm. howitzer, Korea, August 1950. 

limitations that precluded the creation 

of additional units and policy restrictions that forbade the creation of new units 

merely to accommodate black recruits. The operations staff recommended instead that black soldiers in excess of unit strength be shipped directly from training centers to overseas commands as replacements without regard for specific 

assignment. McAuliffe's personnel staff, in turn, warned that on the basis of a 

monthly average dispatch of 2 5, 000 replacements to the Far East Command, the 

portion of Negroes in those shipments would be 15 percent for May 19 51, 21 

percent for June, 22 percent for July, and 16 percent for August. McAuliffe 

listed the familiar problems that would accrue to the Far East commanders from 

this decision, but he was unable to break the impasse in Washington. Thus the 

problem of excess black manpower was passed on to the overseas commanders 

for resolution. 13 

Commanders in Korea had already begun to apply the only practical 

remedy. Confronted with battle losses in white units and a growing surplus of 

black replacements arriving in Japan, the Eighth Army began assigning individual black soldiers just as it had been assigning individual Korean soldiers to 

understrength units. 14 In August 1950, for example, initial replacements for 11Memo, CG, AFF, for G-1, 8 May 51 , sub: Negro Strength in the Army, G-1 291.2. 12

Memo, ASA for SA, 1 Jul 51, and Draft Memo, SA for President (not sent), both in SA 291.2. 13CMT 2 (Brig Gen D. A. Ogden, Chief, Orgn & Tng Div, G-3), 3 May 51. CMT 3 (Brig Gen W. E. 

Dunkel berg, Chief, Manpower Control Div, G-1), 21 May 5I, and CMT 4 (Ogden), 24 May 51 , to G-1 Summar(. Sheet for CofS, 18 Apr 5 I, sub: Negro Oversrrengrhs, G-1 291.2. 4The Korean Augmentation to the United Stares Army, known as KATUSA, a program for integrating 

Korean soldiers in American units, was substantially ditterent from the Integration of black Americans tn 

terms of official authorization and management; see CMH study by David C. Skaggs, "The Katusa Program." in CMH. 
434 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

battle casualties in the 9th Infantry of the U.S. 2d Infantry Division included 

two black officers and eighty-nine black enlisted men. The commander assigned 

them to units in his severely undermanned all-white 1st and 2d Battalions. In 

September sixty more soldiers from the regiment's all-black 3d Battalion returned to the regiment for duty. They were first attached but later, with the 

agreement of the officers and men involved, assigned to units of the 1st and 2d 

Battalions. Subsequently, 225 black replacements were routinely assigned 

wherever needed throughout the regiment. 15 By December the 9th Infantry had 

absorbed Negroes to about their proportion of the national population, 11 percent. Of six black officers among them, one commanded Company C and 

another was temporarily in command of Company B when that unit fought in 

November on the Ch'ongch'on River line. S. L. A. Marshall later described 

Company Bas " possibly the bravest " unit in that action. 16 

The practice of assigning .individual blacks throughout white units in Korea 

accelerated during early 1951 and figured in the manpower rotation program 

which began in Korea during May. By this time the practice had so spread that 

9.4 percent of all Negroes in the theater were serving in some forty-one newly 

and unofficially integrated units. 17 Another 9.3 percent were in integrated but 

predominantly black units. The other 81 percent continued to serve in 

segregated units: in March 1951 these numbered 1 black regiment, 10 battalions, 66 separate companies, and 7 separate detachments. Looked at another 

way, by May 1951 some 61 percent of the Eighth Army's infantry companies 

were at least partially integra ted. 

Though still limited, the conversion to integrated units was permanent. The 

Korean expedient, adopted out of battlefield necessity, carried out haphazardly, 

and based on such imponderables as casualties and the draft, passed the 

ultimate test of traditional American pragmatism: it worked. And according to 

reports from Korea, it worked well. The performance of integrated troops was 

praiseworthy with no report of racial friction. 18 It was a test that could not fail to 

impress field commanders desperate for manpower. 

Training 

Training units in the United States were subject to many of the stresses suffered by the Eighth Army, and without fanfare they too began to integrate. 

There was little precedent for the change. True, the Army had integrated officer 

training in World War II and basic training at the Women's Army Corps Training Center at Fort Lee, Virginia, in April 1950. But beyond that only the rare 

black trainee designated for specialist service was assigned to a white training 

unit. Until 1950 there was no effort to mix black and white trainees because the 

I)Memo, CO, 9th In f. for TIG, 29 Oct ~0. attached to IG Summary Sheet for CofS. 7 Dec ~0. sub: Policy 

Regarding Negro Segregation, CS 291.2 (7 Dec ~0); FEC. "G-1 Command Report, I January-31 October 

19~0." 

•6s. L.A. Marshall, "Integration,' ' Detroit News, May 13. 1956. 170RO Technical Memorandum T-99. A Preliminary Report on the Utilization of Negro Manpower, 30 

Jun 51, p. 34, copy in CMH. 18Ibid., p. 35. For a popular report on the success of this partial integration. see Harold H. Man in, "How 

Do Our Negro Troops Measure Up?." Saturday Evening Post223 (June 16, 19H):30-31. 
THE ARMY INTEGRATES 435 

Army's manpower expertS always predicted a "social problem," a euphemism 

for the racial conflict they feared would follow integration at large bases in the 

United States. 

Not that demands for integration ever really ceased. Civil rights organizations and progressive lawmakers continued to press the Army, and the Selective 

Service System itself complained that black draftees were being discriminated 

against even before induction. 19 Because so many protests had focused on the 

induction process, James Evans, the Civilian Aide to the Secretary of Defense, 

recommended that the traditional segregation be abandoned. at least during 

the period between induction and first assignment. 2° Congressman Jacob Javits, 

always a critic of the Army's segregation policy, was particularly disturbed by the 

segregation of black trainees at Fort Dix, New Jersey. His request that training 

units be integrated was politely rejected in the fall of 1950 by General Marshall, 

who implied that the subject was an unnecessary intrusion, an attitude 

characteristic of the Defense Department's war-distracted feelings coward integration. 21 

Again, the change in Army policy came not because the staff ordered it, but 

because local commanders found it necessary. The commanders of the nine 

training divisions in the continental United States were hard pressed because the 

number of black and white inductees in any monthly draft call, as well as their 

designated training centers, depended on Selective Service and was therefore 

unpredictable. It was impossible for commanders to arrange for the proper 

number of separate white and black training units and instructors to receive the 

inductees when no one knew whether a large contingent of black soldiers or a 

large group of whites would get off the train. A white unit could be undermanned and its instructors idle while a black unit was overcrowded and its instructors 

overworked. This inefficient use of their valuable training instructors led commanders, first at Fort Ord and then at the other training divisions and replacement centers throughout the United States, to adopt the expedient of mixing 

black and white inductees in the same units for messing, housing, and training. 

As the commander of Fort Jackson, South Carolina, put it, sorting out the 

rapidly arriving inductees was ''ridiculous,'' and he proceeded to assign new 

men to units without regard to color. He did, however, divert black inductees 

from time to time "to hold the Negro population down to a workable basis. " 22 

The commanding general of the 9th Infantry Division at Fort Dix raised 

another question about integrating trainees. He had integrated all white units 

19L1r, lewis B. Hershey to SA. 21 Sep 50, SA 291. 2; Memo, Col W. Preston Cordcrman, Exec, Office of 

ASA, for CofS, 8 Scp 50, sub: Racial Complaints. CS 291.2. For an example of complaints by a civil rights 

organization, sec Tclg, J. L. LcForc, Mobile, Ala., NAACP, to President, 18 Sep 50, and ltr, A. Philip Ran· 

dol~h to SecOcf, 30 Oct 50, both in SO 291.2 Neg. 0Memo, Evans for Leva. ASD, 5 Oct 50. sub: Racial Complajot From the Mobile Area, SO 291.2 Neg (18 

Sep 50). 

21 Ltrs, Javits to SccDcf, 6 Sep and 2 Oct 50: Ltrs, SecDcf to Javits, 19 Sep and 10 Oct 50. All in SO 291.2 

Neg. 22G-1 Summary Sheet for VCofS, 22 Apr 52, sub: Information for the G-1 Information Book, G-1 

291.2; Memo, ASA (M&PR) for ASD (M&PR), 22 Aug 52, sub: Progress Repon on Elimination of Segregation 

io the Army, SO 291.2; Memo, VCofS for SA, 18 Jun 51, sub: Assimilation of Negroes at Ft. Jackson, S.C., 

SA 291 .2. Sec also Lt Col William M. NichQis, ''The DOD Program ro Ensure Civil Rights Within the Services 
436 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES. 1940-1965 

other than reserve units at his station, he explained to the First Army commander in January 1951, but since he was receiving. many more white trainees 

than black he would soon be forced to integrate his two black training regiments 

as well by the unprecedented assignment of white soldiers to black units with 

black officers and noncommissioned officers. 23 Actually, such reverse integration was becoming commonplace in Korea, and in the case of Fort Dix the Army 

G-1 solved the commander's dilemma by simply removing the asterisk. which 

. meant black, from the names of the 364th and 36 5th Infantry Regiments. 24 

The nine training divisions were integrated by March 1951, with Fort Dix, 

New Jersey, and Fort Knox, Kentucky, the last to complete the process. Conversion proved trouble-free and permanent; no racial incidents were reported. In 

June Assistant Secretary of the Army Johnson assured the Assistant Secretary of 

Defense for Manpower and Personnel, Anna Rosenberg, that current expansion 

of training divisions would allow the Army to avoid in the future even the occasional funneling of some inductees into temporarily segregated units in times of 

troop overstrengths. 25 Logic dictated that those who trained together would 

serve together, but despite integrated training, the plethora of Negroes in 

overseas replacement pipelines, and the increasing amount of integrated 

fighting in Korea, 98 percent of the Army's black soldiers still served in 

segregated units in April1951, almost three years after President Truman issued 

his order. 

Performance of Segregated Units 

Another factor leading to a change in racial policy was the performance of 

segregated units in Korea. Despite "acts of heroism and capable performance of 

duty" by some individuals, the famous old 24th Infantry Regiment as a whole 

performed poorly. Its instability was especially evident during the fighting on 

Battle Mountain in August 1950, and by September the regiment had clearly 

become a "weak link in the 25th Division line," and in the Eighth Army as 

well. 26 On 9 September the division commander recommended that the regiment be removed from combat. "It is my considered opinion," Maj. Gen. 

William B. Kean told the Eighth Army commander, that the 24th Infantry has 

demonstrated in combat that 

it is untrustworthy and incapable of carrying out missions expected of an Infantry Regiment. In making this statement, I am fully cognizant of the seriousness of the charges 

that I am making, and the implications involved .... The continued use of this Regiment in combat will jeopardize the United Nations war effort in Korea. 27 

and Between the Services and the Community," Rpt 116, 1966, Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 

p. 24. 

23Ltr, Maj Gen W . K. Harrison, CG. 9th lnf Div, Ft. Dix, N.J .. to CG, First Army, 19 Jan 51. sub: Request for an Additional Training Regiment, G-1 291.2. 

24Mcmo, DA, G- 1 forCG1A ; for 9th Inf Div, 28 Feb 51, G- 1 291.2; AGA0-1, 3 Mar 51, AG 322. 

25Memo. ASA for ASD (M&P). 5 Jun 51; Memo, SA for ASD (M&P). 3 Sep 52; both in SD 291.2. 

26Roy E. Appleman, South to the Nakt011g, North to the Yalu (Washington: Government Priming Office, 1961), pp. 485- 86. For a detailed account of the battlefield performance of the 24th and other 

segre.r,ated units, see ibid .• passim. 2 Ltr. Maj Gen W. B. Kean to CG, Eighth Army, 9 Sep 50, sub: Combat Effectiveness of the 24th Infantry 

Regiment, AG 330.1 (A). 
THE ARMY INTEGRATES 437 

Kean went on to spell out his charges. The regiment was unreliable in combat, 

particularly on the defensive and at night; it abandoned positions without warning to troops on its flanks; it wasted equipment; it was prone to panic and 

hysteria; and some of its members were guilty of malingering. The general made 

clear that his charges were directed at the unit as an organization and not at individual soldiers, but he wanted the unit removed and its men reassigned as 

replacements on a percentage basis in the other units of the Eighth Army. 

General Kean also claimed to have assigned unusually able officers to the 

regiment, but to no avail. In attempting to lead their men in battle, all the 

unit's commanders had become casualties. Concluding that segregated units 

would not work in a combat situation, the general believed that the combat 

value of black soldiers would never be realized unless they were integrated into 

white units at a rate of not more than 10 percent. 28 

The 25th Division commander's charges were supported by the Eighth Army 

inspector general, who investigated the 24th Infantry at length but concluded 

that the inactivation of the 24th was unfeasible. Instead he suggested integrating Negroes in all Eighth Army units up to 15 percent of their strength by 

means of the replacement process. The Far East Command's inspector general, 

Brig. Gen. Edwin A. Zundel, concurred, stating that the rotation process would 

provide a good opportunity to accomplish integration and expressing hope that 

the theater would observe the ''spirit'' of the Army's latest racial regulations. 29 

Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker, the Eighth Army commander, accepted the inspector general's report, and the 24th Infantry remained on duty in Korea 

through the winter. Zundel meanwhile continued the investigation and in 

March 1951 offered a more comprehensive assessment of the 24th. It was a fact, 

for example, that 62 percent of the unit's troops were in categories IV and Vas 

against 41 percent of the troops in the 35th Infantry and 46 percent in the 27th, 

the 25th Division's white regiments. The Gillem Board had recommended supplying all such units with 25 percent more officers in the company grades, 

something not done for the 24th Infantry. Some observers also reported 

evidence in the regiment of the lack of leadership and lack of close relationships 

between officers and men; absence of unit esprit de corps; discrimination 

against black officers; and poor quality of replacements. 

Whatever the cause of the unit's poor performance, the unanimous recommendation in the Eighth Army, its inspector general reported, was integration. 

Yet he perceived serious difficulty in integration. To mix the troops of the 

eighty-four major segregated units in the Eighth Army under wartime conditions would create an intolerable administrative burden and would be difficult 

for the individuals involved. If integration was limited to the 24th Infantry 

alone, on the other hand, its members, indeed even its former members, would 

280bservcr Report, Lt Col}. D. Stevens, Plans Div, G-3. 25 Oct 50, G-3 333 PAC (Sec 1-D), Case 18, 

Tab G. 

29FECOM Check Sheet. IG to G-1, FEC. 27 May 51, sub: Report of Investigation; Memo, FEC G-1 for 

CofS, FEC, 30 Apr 51. sub: G-1 Topics Which CJNC May Discuss With Gen Taylor; both arc quoted in 

FECOM Mil Hist Section, "History of the Korean War." JIJ (pt. 2): 151-52, in CMH. 
438 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

SURVIVORS OF AN INTELLIGENCE AND RECONNAISSANCE PLATOON. 24th Infantry, 

Korea, May 1951. 

share the onus of its failure . The inspector general therefore again recommended retaining the 24th, assigning additional officers and noncommissioned officers to black units with low test averages, and continuing the integration of the Eighth Army. 30 

The Eighth Army was not alone in investigating the 24th Infantry. The 

NAACP was also concerned with reportS of the regiment's performance, in particular with figures on the large number of courts-martial. Thirty-six of the men 

convicted, many for violation of Article 75 of the Articles of War (misbehavior 

before the enemy), had appealed to the association for assistance, and Thurgood 

Marshall, then one of its celebrated attorneys, went to the Far East to investigate. Granted carte blanche by the Far East commander, General Douglas 

MacArthur. Marshall traveled extensively in Korea and Japan reviewing the 

record and interviewing the men. His conclusions: "the men were tried in an atmosphere making justice impossible," and the NAACP had the evidence to 

clear most of them Y Contrasting the Army's experiences with those of the Navy 

30Ltr, EUSAK IG to CG, EUSAK, 15 Mar )I , sub: Report of Investigation Concerning 24th Infantry Regi. 

ment and Negro Soldiers in Com bar, EUSAK IG Report. 31

Thurgood Marshall. Report on Korea: The Shameful Story of the Courts Martial of Negro Cis (New 

York: NAACP, 19 )1). 
THE ARMY INTEGRATES 439 

and the Air Force, Marshall attributed discrimination in the military justice 

system to the Army's segregation policy. He blamed MacArthur for failing to 

carry out Truman's order in the Far East and pointed out that no Negroes served 

in the command's headquarters. As long as racial segregation continued, the 

civil rights veteran concluded , the Army would dispense the kind of injustice 

typical of the courts-martial he reviewed. 

It would be hard to refute Marshall's contention that discrimination was a 

handmaiden of segregation. Not so Walter White's contention that the reports 

of the 24th Infantry's poor performance constituted an attempt to discredit the 

combat ability of black soldiers and return them to labor duties. The association's executive secretary had fought racial injustice for many decades, and, considering his World War II experiences with the breakup of the 2d Cavalry Division into labor units, his acceptance of a conspiracy theory in Korea was 

understandable. But it was inaccurate. The Army operated under a different 

social order in 1951, and many combat leaders in the Eighth Army were advocating integration . The number of black service units in the Eighth Army, 

some ninety in March 1951, was comparable to the number in other similar 

Army commands. Nor, for that matter, was the number of black combat units 

in the Eighth Army unusual. In March 1951 the Eighth Army had eighty-four 

such units ranging in size from regiment to detachment. Far from planning the 

conversion of black combat troops to service troops, most commanders were 

recommending their assignment to integrated combat units throughout Korea. 

Apprised of these various conclusions, MacArthur ordered his staff to investigate the problem of segregation in the command. 32 The Far East Command 

G-1 staff incorporated the inspector general's report in its study of the problem, adding that "Negro soldiers can and do fight well when integrated." The 

staff went on to dismiss the importance of leadership as a particular factor in the 

case of black troops by observing that ''no race has a monopoly on stupidity.'' 33 

Before the staff could finish its investigation, General Matthew B. Ridgway 

replaced MacArthur as Far East commander. Fresh from duty as Eighth Army 

commander, Ridgway had had close-hand experience with the 24th Infantry's 

problems; from both a military and a human viewpoint he had concluded that 

segregation was "wholly inefficient, not to say improper." He considered integration the only way to assure esprit de corps in any large segment of the 

Army. As for segregation, Ridgway concluded, "it has always seemed to me 

both un-American and un-Christian for free citizens to be taught to downgrade 

themselves this way as if they were unfit to associate with their fellows or to accept leadership themselves." 34 He had planned to seek authorization to integrate the major black units of the Eighth Army in mid-March, but battlefield 

preoccupations and his sudden elevation ro theater command interfered. Once 

he became commander in chief, however, he quickly concurred in his inspector 

general's recommendation, addling that "integration in white combat units in 

32Ltr, Lt Gcn Edward Almond, CofS, FECOM, to TIG, 15 Mar 51. lG 333.9. 

33FECOM Check Sheet. IG to G- I. FEC. 27 May 51. sub: Report of lnvesrigation; Memo. FEC G-1 for 

Co!S, FEC. 30 Apr H. sub: G-1 Topics Which CINC May Discuss With Gcn Taylor. 34Matthew B. Ridgway. The KoreatJ JIYa,- (New York: Doubleday. 1967). pp. 192-93. 
440 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Korea is a practical solution to the optimum utilization of Negro manpower provided the overall theater level of Negroes does not exceed 15 percent of troop 

level and does not exceed over 12 percent in any combat unit.' ' 35 

The 24th Infantry's experiences struck yet another blow at the Army's race 

policy. Reduce the size of black units, the Gillem Board had reasoned, and you 

will reduce inefficiency and discrimination . Such a course had not worked. The 

same troubles that befell the 92d Division in Italy were now being visited in 

Korea on the 24th Infantry, a unit rich with honors extending back to the Indian 

fighting after the Civil War, the War with Spain, and the Philippine Insurrection. The unit could also boast among its medal of honor winners the first man 

to receive the award in Korea, Pfc. William Thompson of Company M. Before 

its inactivation in 1951 the 24th had yet another member so honored, Sgt. Cornelius H. Carlton of Company H. 

Final Arguments 

To concentrate on the widespread sentiment for integration in the Far East 

would misrepresent the general attitude that still prevailed in the Army in the 

spring of 1951. This attitude was clearly reflected again by the Chamberlin 

Board , which completed its reexamination of the Army's racial policy in light of 

the Korean experience in April. The board recognized the success of integrated 

units and even cited evidence indicating that racial friction had decreased in 

those units since the men generally accepted any replacement willing to fight. 

But in the end the board retreated into the Army's conventional wisdom: 

separate units must be retained, and the number of Negroes in the Army must 

be regulated. 36 

The board's recommendations were not approved. Budgetary limitations 

precluded the creation of more segregated units and the evidence of Korea could 

not be denied. Yet the board still enjoyed considerable support in some 

quarters. The Vice Chief of Staff, General Haislip, who made no secret of his 

opposition to integration, considered it "premature" to rely and act solely on 

the experience with integration in Korea and the training divisions, and he told 

Secretary Pace in May 1951 that "no action should be taken which would lead to 

the immediate elimination of segregated units.' '

37 And then there was the 

assessment of Lt. Gen. Edward M. Almond, World War II commander of che 

92d Division and later X Corps commander in Korea and MacArthur's chief of 

staff. Twenty years after the Korean War Almond's attitude toward integration 

had not changed. 

1 do not agree that integration improves military efficiency; I believe that it·weakens it. I 

believe that integration was and is a political solution for the composition of our military 

forces because those responsible for the procedures either do not understand the 

~Memorandum for File, FE COM IG, 2 May 51, copy in AG 330.1. 

36Repon of Board of Officers on Utilization of Negro Manpower (2d Chamberlin Report), 3 Apr 51, G-1 

334 (8 Nov 51). 37Memo, Acrg CofS for SA, 31 May )I, sub: Negro Strength in the Army, CS 291.2 Negroes (II Apr 51); 

sec also lntcrv, author with Haislip, 14 Feb 71, CMH files. 
THE ARMY INTEGRATES 441 

characteristics of the two human elements concerned , the white man and the Negro as 

individuals. The basic characteristics of Negro and White are fundamentally different 

and these basic differences must be recognized by those responsible for integration. By 

trial and error we must test the integration in its application. These persons who promulgate and enforce such policies either have not the understanding of the problem or 

they do not have the intestinal fortitude to do what they think if they do understand it. 

There is no question in my mind of the inherent difference in races. This is not 

racism-it is common sense and understanding. Those who ignore these differences 

merely interfere with the com bat effectiveness of battle units. 38 

The opinions of senior commanders long identified with segregated units in 

combat carried weight with the middle-ranking staff officers who, lacking such 

experience, were charged with devising policy. Behind the opinions expressed 

by many staff members there seemed to be a nebulous, often unspoken, conviction that Negroes did not perform well in combat. The staff officers who saw 

proof for their convictions in the troubles of the 24th Infantry ignored the 

possibility that segregated units, not individual soldiers, was the problem. Their 

attitude explains why the Army continued to delay changes made imperative by 

its experience in Korea. 

It also explains why at this late date the Army turned to the scientific community for still another review of its racial policy. The move originated with the 

Army's G-3, Maj. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, who in February called for the collection of all information on the Army's experiences with black troops in Korea. 

If the G-1, General McAuliffe , did not consider the available data sufficient, 

General Taylor added, he would join in sponsoring further investigation in the 

Far East. 3? The result was two studies. The G-1 sent an Army personnel research 

team, which left for Korea in April 1951, to study the Army's regulations for 

assigning men under combat conditions and to consider the performance of integrated units. 40 On 29 March, Maj. Gen. WardS. Maris, the G-4, requested 

the Operations Research Office, a contract agency for the Army, to make a study 

of how best to use black manpower in the Army. 41 The G-1 investigation, 

undertaken by manpower experts drawn from several Army offices, concentrated on the views of combat commanders; the contract agency reviewed all 

available data, including a detailed battlefield survey by social scientists. Both 

groups submitted preliminary reportS in July 1951. 

Their findings complemented each other. The G-1 team reported that integration of black soldiers into white combat units in Korea had been accomplished generally ''without undue friction and with better utilization of 

manpower." Combat commanders, the team added, "almost unanimously 

favor integration. " 42 The individual soldier's own motivation determined his 

l

8tncl to Ltr, Almond to CMH, I Apr 72, CMH Files. 

39Memo. ACofS, G-3. for ACofS, G-1. 22 Feb 51. WDGPA 291.2. 

40Memo, Chief. Pers Mgmt Div. G-1. forCofS, G-3. 6 Mar H . WDGPA 291.2. 41Ltr, Maj Gen Ward Maris, G-4. for Dir. ORO, 29 Mar~ I, G- 4 291.2. The Oper:uions Research Office, 

a subsidiary of the Johns Hopkins University, performed qualitative and quantitative analyses of strategy, raetics, and materiel. Some of irs assignments were subcontracted to other research institutions; all were assigned 

by rhe G-4's Research and Development Division and coordinated wirh the Department of Defense. 42DA Personnel Research Team. "A Preliminary Reporr on Personnel Research Data" (ca. 28 Jul ) !), AG 

333.3 
442 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

competence, the team concluded. The contract agency, whose report was identified by the code name Project CLEAR, 43 observed that large black units were, 

on average, less reliable than large white units, but the effectiveness of small 

black units varied widely. The performance of individual black soldiers in integrated units, on the other hand, approximated that of whites. It found that 

white officers commanding black units tended to attribute their problems to 

race; those commanding integrated units saw their problems as military ones. 

The contract team also confirmed previous Army findings that efficient officers 

and noncommissioned officers, regardless of race, were accepted by soldiers of 

both races. Integration, it decided, had not lowered white morale, but it had 

raised black morale. Virtually all black soldiers supported integration, while 

white soldiers, whatever their private sentiments, were not overtly hostile. In 

most situations, white attitudes toward integration became more favorable with 

firsthand experience. Although opinions varied, most combat commanders with 

integration experience believed that a squad should contain not more than two 

Negroes. In sum, the Project CLEAR group concluded that segregation 

hampered the Army's effectiveness while integration increased it. Ironically, 

this conclusion practically duplicated the verdict of the Army's surveys of the integration of black and white units in Europe at the end of World War II. 

General Collins immediately accepted the Project CLEAR conclusions when 

presented to him verbally on 23 July 1951.44 His endorsement and the subsequent announcement that the Army would integrate its forces in the Far East 

implied a connection which did not exist. Actually, the decision to integrate in 

Korea was made before Project CLEAR or the G-1 study appeared. This is not to 

denigrate the importance of these documents. Their justification of integration 

in objective, scientific terms later helped convince Army traditionalists of the 

need for worldwide change and absolved the Secretary of the Army, his Chief of 

Staff, and his theater commander of the charge of having made a political and 

social rather than a military decision. 45 

Integration of the Eighth Army 

On 14 May 1951 General Ridgway forced the issue of integration by formally 

requesting authority to abolish segregation in his command. He would begin 

with the 24th Infantry, which he wanted to replace after reassigning its men to 

white units in Korea. He would then integrate the other combat units and, 

430RO-T-99. "A Preliminary Report on the Utilization of Negro Manpower, " 30 Jun 51 , $4-$6, copy 

in CMH. A draft version of a more comprehensive study on the same subject was prepared in seven volumes 

(ORO-R-11) in November 1951. These several documents arc: usually referred to as Project CLEAR, the code 

name for the complete version. The declassification and eventual publication of this very important social 

document had a long and interesting histOry; sec, for example, Memo, Howard Sacks. Office of the General 

Counsel, SA. for James C. Evans, 3 Nov 55, in CMH. For over a decade a "sanitized" version of Project CLEAR 

remained For Official l!Jse Only. The study was finally cleared and published under the title Social Research 

atJd the Desegregation of the U.S. Ar:tJiy, ed. Leo Bogart (Chicago: Markham, 1969). 440RO , "Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army: A 1951 Study" (advance draft). pp. viii-ix, copy 

inCMH. 

45Ltr, Dir. ORO, to G-3, 20 Nov 52, G-3 291.2; see also lnterv, Nichols with Davis. 
\ 

THE ARMY INTEGRATES 443 

finally, the service units. Where special skills were not a factor Ridgway wanted 

to assign his black troops throughout the theater to a maximum of 12 percent of 

any unit. To do chis he needed permission to integrate the 40th and 45th Divisions, the federalized National Guard units then stationed in Japan. He based 

his proposals on the need to maintain che combat effectiveness of his command 

where segregated units had proved ineffective and integrated units acceptable. 46 

When it finally arrived, the proposal for widescale integration of combat 

units encountered no real opposition from the Army staff. General Ridgway had 

rehearsed his proposal with the G-3 when the latter visited the Far East in 

April. Taylor "heartily approved ," calling the times auspicious for such a 

moveY Of course his office quickly approved the plan, and McAuliffe in G-1 

and che rest of the staff followed suit. There was some sentiment on the staff, 

eventually suppressed, for retaining che 24th Infantry as an integrated unit since 

the statutory requirement for the four black regiments had been repealed in 

1950.48 The staff did insist, over the G-1's objections, on postponing the integration of the two National Guard divisions until their arrival in Korea, where 

the change could be accomplished through normal replacement-rotation procedures.49 There were other minor complications and misunderstandings between the Far Ease Command and the Army staff over the timing of the order, 

but they were easily ironed out. 5° Collins discussed the plan with the appropriate congressional chairmen, Ridgway further briefed the Secretary of 

Defense during General Marshall's 1951 visit to Japan, and Secretary of the 

Army Pace kept the President informed.H 

Pace had succeeded Gordon Gray as secretary in Aprill950 and participated 

in the decisions leading to .integration. A Harvard-trained lawyer with impressive managerial skills, Pace did not originate any of the Army's racial programs, but he fully <;up ported the views. of his Chief of Staff, General Collins. 2 

Meeting with his senior civilian assistants, the G-1 and G-3 of the Army, and 

Assistant Secretary of Defense Rosenberg on 9 June , Pace admitted chat their 

discussions were being conducted ''probably with a view to achieving complete 

integration in the Army." Nevertheless, he stressed a cautionary approach 

because ''once a step was taken it was very much harder to retrace.'' He was particularly worried about the high percentage of black soldiers, 12.5 percent of the 

Army's total, compared with the percentage of Negroes in the ocher services. He 

summarized the three options still under discussion in the Department of the 

Army: Ridgway's call for complete integration in Korea, followed by integration 

46Msg, CINCFE to DA. DA IN 12483. 14 May 51, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the FEC: ibid., 

DA IN 13036. 15 May 51, same sub. Sec also Ltrs, CG, Eighth Army. to CINCFE. 7 May 51, sub: Redesigna· 

tion of Negro Combat Units, and Ridgway to author, 3 Dec 73. both in CMH. 47Ridgway, The KoreatJ War, p. 192. 48Scction 401, Army Organization Act of 1950 (PL 581, 81st Con g.). published in DA Bull9, 6 Jul 50. Sec 

also Msg, DA to CINCFE, DA 92561. 28 May H; G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS and SA, 14 May 51. sub: 

Utilization of Negro Manpower; Memo for Red. G-1 (ca. 14 May 51). All in G-1 291.2. 

49G-I Summary Sheets for CofS. 18 and 23 May H. sub: Utilization of Negro Troops in FECOM, G-1 

291.2. Sec also Elva Stillwaugh's study. "Personne l Problems in the Korean Conflict," pp. 26-29, in CMH. 

>Osee, for example, Msg, DA to CINCFE, DA 92561, 28 May 51; Msg, CINCFE to DA, C6444. 8 Jun 51. 

>~ o, Ang CofS for SA, 28 May 51. sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, CS 29 1.2. 

H lmerv, author with Collins. 
444 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

GENERAL RIDGWAY 

of Army elements in Japan, with a 10 

percent limit on black replacements; 

Mark Clark's proposal to ship black 

combat battalions to Korea to be used 

at the division commanders' discretion, 

with integration limited to combattested individuals and then only in support units; and, finally, the Army 

staff's decision to continue sending 

replacements for use as the Par East 

Command saw fit . 

Commenting on the Ridgway proposal, one participant pointed out that 

a 10 percent limit ori black replacements, even if integration spread to the 

European Command, would mean that 

the majority of the Army's Negroes 

would remain in the United States. 

Rosenberg, however, preferred the 

Ridgway plan. Stressing that it was an 

Army decision and that she was "no crusader," she nevertheless reminded 

Secretary Pace that the Army needed to show some progress. Rosenberg mentioned the threat of a Congress which might force more drastic measures upon 

the Army and pointedly offered to defer answering her many congressional inquisitors until the Army reached a decision. 53 

The decision was finally announced on 1 July 1951. A message went out to 

General Ridgway approving ' 'deactivation of the 24th Infantry and your general 

plan for integration of Negroes into all units (with the temporary exception of 

the 40th and 45th Divisions) ." 54 The staff wanted the move to be gradual, progressive, and secret to avoid any possible friction in the Eighth Army and to win 

general acceptance for integration. But it did not remain secret for long. In the 

face of renewed public criticism for its segregated units and after lengthy staff 

discussion, the Army announced the integration of the Far East Command on 

26 July, the third anniversary of the Truman order. 55 Prominent among the 

critics of the Army's delay was General MacArthur, who publicly blamed President Truman for the continued segregation of his former command. The 

charge, following as it did the general's dismissal, was much discussed in the 

press and the Department of Defense. Easily disputed, it was eventually overtaken by the fact of integration. 

HMemo for Red, Col James F. Collins, Asst to ASD (M&P). 9 Jun H, SD 291.2. 

HMsg, DA to ClNCFE, DA 953W. 1 Jul51. 

))Memo, Chief, Public Info Div, CINFO, for Dir, Office of Public Info, DOD, 26 Jul 51 ; DOD Press 

Release, 26 Jul 51. For last-minute criticism of the continued segregation see, for example, Ltr, Sens. Herben 

Lehman and Hubert Humphrey to SecDcf, 25 Jul 51; Memo, ASA for ASD (M&P), 19 Jul 51, sub: Racial 

Segregation in FECOM; Tclg, Elmer W. Henderson, Dir, American Council on Human Rights, to George C. 

Marshall, SecDcf, 31 May 51. All in SecDcf 291.2. 
THE ARMY INTEGRATES 445 

Three problems had to be solved in carrying out the integration order. The 

first, inactivation of the 24th Infantry and the choice of a replacement, was 

quickly overcome. From the replacements suggested, Ridgway decided on the 

14th Infantry, which had been recently assigned, minus men and equipment, to 

the Far East Command. It was filled with troops and equipment from the 34th 

Infantry, then training replacements in Japan. On 1 October it was assigned to 

the 24th's zone of responsibility in the 25th Division's line. The 24th Infantry, 

its men and equipment transferred to other infantry units in Korea, was inactivated on 1 October and "transferred to the control of the Department of the 

Army. " 56 

The second problem, integration of units throughout the command, proved 

more difficult and time-consuming. Ridgway considered the need most urgent 

in the infantry units and want·ed their integration to take precedence. The 3d 

Battalion of the 9th Infantry was reorganized first, many of its black members 

scattered throughout other infantry units in the 2d Division. But then things 

got out of phase. To speed the process the Army staff dropped its plan for inactivating all segregated units and decided simply to remove the designation 

"segregated" and assign white soldiers to formerly all-black units. Before this 

form of integration could take place in the 3d Battalion, 15th Infantry, the last 

major black infantry unit, the 64th Tank Battalion and the 58th Armored Field 

Artillery Battalion began the process of shifting their black troops to nearby 

white units. The 77th EngineeJ Combat Company was the last combat unit to 

lose the asterisk, the Army's way of designating a unit black. 57 The command 

was originally committed to an .Army contingency plan that would transfer black 

combat troops found superfluous to the newly integrated units to service units, 

but this proved unnecessary. All segregated combat troops were eventually 

assigned to integrated combat units. 

58 

To soften the emotional aspects of the change, troop transfers were scheduled as part of the individual soldier's normal rotation. By the end of October 

1951 the Eighth Army had integrated some 75 percent of its infantry units. The 

process was scheduled for completion by December, but integration of the rest 

of its combat units and the great number of service units dragged on for another 

half year. It was not until May 1952 that the last divisional and nondivisional 

organizations were integrated. 

59 

The third and greatest problem in the integration of the .Far East Command 

was how to achieve a proportionate distribution of black troops throughout the 

command. Ridgway was under orders to maintain black strength at a maximum 

12 percent except in combat infantry units, where the maximum was 10 percent. 

The temporary restriction on integrating the 40th and 45th Divisions and the 

lack of specially trained Negroes eligible for assignment to the Japan Logistical 

Command added to the difficulty of achieving this goal, but the basic cause of 

56

Per Ltr, TAG to CINCFE, 9 Aug 51, AGA0- 1 322 (26 Jul 51). implemented by Eighth Army GO 717, 

22SCf.5 1. 5 Msg, DA 81846, 19 Sep 51; Eighth Army GO 774, 16 Oct 51. 58FECOM Mil Hisr Section, "History of the Korean War," lll (pt. 2): 153-5 7, 5

9Memo, ASA (M&RF) for ASD (M&P). 22 Aug 52, sub: Integration of Negro Manpower, SD 291.2. 
446 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

MACHINE GUNNERS OF COMPANY L, 14TH INFANTRY. Htf/931, Korea, September 

1952. 

delay was the continued shipment of black troops to the Far East in excess of the 

prescribed percentage. During the integration period the percentage of black 

replacements averaged between 12.6 and 15 percent and occasionally rose above 

15 percent. 60 Ridgway finally got permission from Washington to raise the ratio 

of black soldiers in his comlbat infantry units tO 12 percent, and further relief 

could be expected in the coming months when the two National Guard divisions began integrating.

61 Still, in OctOber 1951 the proportion of Negroes in 

the Eighth Army had risen to 17.6 percent, and the flow of black troops to the 

Far East continued unabated, threatening the success of the integration program. Ridgway repeatedly appealed for relief, having been warned by his G-1 

that future black replacements must not exceed 10 percent if the integration 

program was to continue successfully. 62 

Ridgway was particularly concerned with the strain on his program caused by 

the excessive number of black combat replacements swelling the percentage of 

Negroes in his combat units. By September black combat strength reached 14.2 

percent, far above the limits set by the Army staff. Ridgway wanted combat 

60Jbid.; Srillwaugh, "Personnel Problems in rhc Korean Conflicr," pp. 33- 35 . 

61Msg. CSA to CJNCFE. DA 96489, 18 Jul 51. 

62Journa l Files, G- 1. FEC. Oct 51 , Annex 2. 
THE ARMY INTEGRATES 447 

replacements limited to 12 percent. He also proposed that his command be 

allowed to request replacements by race a'nd occupational specialty in order to 

provide Army headquarters with a sound basis for allotting black enlisted men 

to the Far East. While the Army staff promised to try to limit the number of 

black combat troops, it rejected the requisition scheme. Selection for occupational specialist training was not made by race, the G-1 explained, and the 

Army could not control the racial proport~ons of any particular specialty. Since 

the Army staff had no control over the number of Negroes in the Army, their 

specialties or the replacement needs of the command, no purpose would be 

served by granting such a request. 63 

Yet Ridgway's advice could not be ignored, because by year's end the whole 

Army had developed a vested interest in the success of integration in the Far 

East. The service was enjoying the praise of civil rights congressmen, much of 

the metropolitan press, and even some veterans' groups, such as the Am vets. 64 

Secretary Pace was moved to call the integration of the Eighth Army a notable 

advance in the field of human relations. 65 But most of all, the Army began to 

experience the fruits of racial harmony. Much of the conflict and confusion 

among troops that characterized the first year of the war disappeared as integration spread, and senior officials commented publicly on the superior military efficiency of an integrated Army in Korea.66 As for the men themselves, their attitudes were in sharp contrast to those predicted by the Army traditionalists. 

The conclusion of some white enlisted men, wounded and returned from Korea, 

were typical: 

Far as I'm concerned it [integration] worked pretty good .... When it comes to life or 

death, race does not mean any difference . . .. It's like one big family .... Got a colored guy on our machine gun crew-after a while I wouldn't do without 

him .... Concerning combat, what I've seen, an American is an American. When we 

have to do something we're all the same . . . . Each guy is like your own brother-we 

treated all the same .... Had a colored platoon leader. They are as good as any people .... We [an integrated squad] had something great in common, sleeping, guarding each other-sometimes body against body as we slept in bunkers .. .. Takes all 

kinds to fight a war.

67 

Integration was an established fact in Korea, but the question remained: 

could an attitude forged in the heat of battle be sustained on the more tranquil 

maneuver grounds of central Europe and the American south? 

6~Rad, ClNCFE for DA, DA lN 182547, ll Scp 52, sub: Negro Personnel; Msg, DA ro CINCFE, 23 Sep 

52, G - 1 291.2. 

64See, for example, Press Release by Senator Herberr H. Lehman, 27 July 1951, which expressed the praise 

of nine U.S. senarors; Editorial in the Baltimore Sun, December 21, 1951; Lu, National Cmdr, Amvets, to 

CINCFE, 5 Dec 51, copies in CMH. 

~Semia,mual Report of the Secrelary of Defeme, july J-December 31, 1951 (Washington: Governmem 

Printing Office, 1952), p. 13. 

66See, for example, lnterv, Nichols wirh Bradley; l.tr, Ridgway to aurhor, 3 Dec 73; Mark S. Watson, 

"Mosr Combat Gl's are Unsegregared," darelined 15 Dec 51 (probably prepared for rhc Balrimorc Sun). All 

in CMH files. Sec also James C. Evans and David Lane, "Integration in the Armed Services," Am;a/s of the 

American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 304 (March 1956):78. 67Extractcd from a series of interviews conducted by Lee Nichols with a group of wounded soldiers ar 

Walter Reed Army Medical Cemer, 12 November 1952, in Nichols Collection, CMH. 
448 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

COLOR GUARD, 160TH INFANTRY, KOREA, 1952. 

Integration of the European and Continental Commands 

Since the Army was just 12 percent Negro in September 1951, it should have 

been possible to solve Ridgway's problem of black overstrength simply by 

distributing black soldiers evenly throughout the Army. But this solution was 

frustrated by the segregation still in force in other commands. Organized black 

units in the United States were small and few in number, and black recruits who 

could not be used in them were shipped as replacements to the overseas commands, principally in the Far East and Europe.68 Consequently, Ridgway's problem was not an isolated one; his European counterpart was operating a largely 

segregated command almost 13 percent black. The Army could not prevent 

black overstrengths so long as Negroes were ordered into the quota-free service 

by color-blind draft boards, but it could equalize the overstrength by integrating its forces all over the world. 

This course, along with the knowledge that integration was working in the 

Far East and the training camps, was leading senior Army officials toward full 

integration. But they wanted certain reassurances. Believing that integration of 

the continental commands would create, in the words of the G-1 , "obstacles 

and difficulties vastly greater than those in FECOM," the Army staff wanted 

68In 1951 the European Command was the major Army headquarters in the European theater. lt was, at 

the same time, a combined command with some 20,000 members of the Air Force and Navy serving along 

with 234.000 Army troops. In August 1952 a separate Army command {U.S. Army, Europe) was created 

within the European Command. Discussion of the European Command and irs commander in rhe following 

paragraphs applies only to Army troops. 
THE ARMY INTEGRATES 449 

these problems thoroughly analyzed before taking additional moves, "experimental or otherwise," to broaden integration. 

69 General Collin~, although 

personally committed to integration, voiced another widespread concern over 

extending integration beyond the Far East units. Unlike the Navy and the Air 

Force, which were able to secure more highly qualified men on a volunteer basis, 

the A~my had long been forced to accept anyone meeting the draft's minimum 

standards. This circumstance was very likely to result, he feared, in an army 

composed to an unprecedented degree of poorly educated black soldiers, 

possibly as much as 30 percent in the near future. 70 

The Army's leaders received the necessary reassurances in the coming 

months. The Secretary of Defense laid to rest their fear that the draft-dependent 

Army would become a dumping ground for the ignorant and untrainable when, 

in April 1951, he directed that troops must be distributed among the services on 

a qualitative basis. Assistant Secretary of the Army Johnson asked Professor Eli 

Ginzberg, a social scientist and consultant to the Army, to explain to the Army 

Policy Council the need for aggressive action to end segregation. 71 And once 

again, but this time with considerable scientific detail to support its recommendations, the Project CLEAR final report told Army leaders that the service should 

be integrated worldwide. Again the researchers found that the Army's problem 

was not primarily racial, but a question of how best to use underqualified men. 

Refining their earlier figures, they decided that black soldiers were best used in 

integrated units at a ratio of 15 to 85. Integration on the job was conducive to 

social integration, they discovered, and social integration, dependent on several 

variables, was particularly amenable to firm policy guidance and local control. 

Finally, the report found that integration on military posts was accepted by local 

civilians as a military policy unlikely to affect their community. 72 

The Chief of Staff approved the Project CLEAR final report, although his 

staff had tried to distinguish between the report's view of on-the-job integration 

and social integration, accepting the former with little reservation, but considering the latter to be "weak in supporting evidence." The personnel staff continued to stress the need to reimpose a racial quota quickly without waiting for 

black enrollment to reach 15 percent as the Project CLEAR report suggested. It 

also believed that integration should be limited to the active federal service, exempting National Guard units under state control. General McAuliffe agreed to 

drop racial statistics but warned that investigation of discrimination charges 

depended on such statistics. He also agreed that blacks could be mixed with 

whites at 10 to 20 percent of the strength of any white unit, but to assign whites 

in similar percentages to black units "would undoubtedly present difficulties 

and place undue burdens on the assigned white personnel." Finally, McAuliffe 

69Mcmo, G- 1 forDCofS. Admin, 18Jul51, G-1 291.2. 70

Ltr, Eli Ginzbcrg to Lt Col Edward J. Barca, Hisr Div, USAREUR. attached to Ltr, Ginzberg to Carter 

Bur~css, ASD (M&P), 11 Nov 55, SD 291.2 (II Nov 55). 1

Ltr, Ginzberg to Burgess, II Nov 55. 720RO-R-Il. Rpt, Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army, Project CLEAR. vol. I; G-1 Summary 

Sheet for CofSA, 5 Jan 52. sub: Evaluation of ORO-R - II on Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army, CS 

291.2 Negroes (5 }an 52). 
450 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

stressed that commanders would have flexibility in working out the oonoperational aspects of integration so long as their methods and procedures were consistent with Army policy. 73 

These reservations aside, McAuliffe concluded that integration was working 

in enough varied circumstances to justify its extension to the entire Army. 

General Collins agreed, and on 29 December 1951 he ordered all major commanders to prepare integration programs for their commands. Integration was 

the Army's immediate goal, and, he added, it was to be progressive, in orderly 

stages, and without publicity. 74 

The Chief of Staff's decision was especially timely for the European Command where General Thomas T. Handy faced manpower problems similar to if 

not so critical as those in the Far East. During 1951 Army strength in Europe had 

also risen sharply-from 86,000 to 234,000 men. Black strength had increased 

even more dramatically, from 8,876 (or 11 percent) to 27,267 (or 13 percent). 

The majority of black soldiers in Europe served in segregated units, the number 

of which more than doubled because of the Korean War. From sixty-six units in 

June 1950, the figure rose to 139 in March 1952. Most of these units were not in 

divisions but in service organizations; 113 were service units, of which fifty-three . . were transportation umts. 

Again as in the Far East, some integration in Europe occurred in response to 

the influx of new soldiers as well as to Army directives. Handy integrated his 

Noncommissioned Officers' Academy in 1950 in an operation involving 

thousands of enlisted men. After he closed the segregated Kitzingen Training 

Center in February 1951, black troops were absorbed into other training and 

replacement centers on an integrated basis. For some time Army commanders in 

Europe had also been assigning certain black soldiers with specialist training to 

white units, a practice dramatically accelerated in 1950 when the command 

began receiving many Negroes with occupation specialties unneeded in black 

units. In March 1951 Handy directed that, while the assignment of Negroes to 

black units remained the first priority, Negroes possessing qualifications 

unusable or in excess of the needs of black units would be assigned where they 

could be used most effectivel y. n Consequently, by the end of 1951 some 7 p ercent of all black enlisted men, 17 percent of the black officers, and all black 

soldiers of the Women's Army Corps in the command were serving in integrated 

units. 

In sharp contrast to the Far East Command, there was little support among 

senior Army officials in Europe for full integration. Sent by Assistant Secretary 

Johnson to brief European commanders on the Army's decision, Eli Ginzberg 

met with almost universal skepticism. Most commanders were unaware of the 

Army's success with integration in the Far East and in the training divisions at 

home; when so informed they were quick to declare such a move impractical for 

Europe. They warned of the social problems that would arise with the all-white 

73G- I Summary Sheet for CofSA. >Jan 52. 741bid .. 29 Dec 51. sub: Integration of Negro Enlisted Personnel. G- 1 291.2 Negroes. 

n ltr. EUCOM to Sub Cmds, 16 Mar 51, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel. USAREUR SGS 291.2. Sec 

also EUCOM Hist Div. "Integration of Negro and White Troops in the U.S. Army. Europe. 1952-1954," 

p. ~.in CMH. This monograph, prepared by Ronald Sher, will be cited hereafter as Shcr Monograph. 
THE ARMY INTEGRATES 451 

civilian population and predicted that the Army would be forced to abandon 

the program in midstream. 76 

There were exceptions. Lt. Gen. Manton S. Eddy, the commander of the 

Seventh Army, described the serious operational problems caused by segregation in his command. Most of his black units were unsatisfactory, and without 

minimizing the difficulties he concluded in 1951 that integration was desirable 

not only for the sake of his own mission but for the Army's efficiency and the 

nation's world leadership. Officers at Headquarters, Supreme Allied Powers, 

Europe, also recited personnel and training problems caused in their command 

by segregation, but here, Ginzberg noted, the attitude was one of cautious 

silence, an attitude that made little difference because General Eisenhower's 

command was an international organization having nothing to do with the Army's race policies. It would, however, be of some interest during the 1952 

political campaign when some commentators made the false claim that 

Eisenhower had integrated American units in Europe. 

77 

Obviously it was going to take more than a visit from Ginzberg to move the 

European Command's staff, and later in the year Collins took the matter up 

personally with Handy. This consultation, and a series of exchanges between 

McAuliffe and command officials, led Collins to ask Handy to submit an integration p lan as quickly as possible. 78 Handy complied with a proposal that 

failed on the whole to conform to the Army's current plans for worldwide integration and was quickly amended in Washington. The European Command 

would not, Collins decreed, conduct a special screening of its black officers and 

noncoms for fitness for combat duty. The command would not retain segregated 

service units, although the Army would allow an extension of the program's 

timetable to accomplish the integration of these units. Finally, the command 

would stage no publicity campaign but would instead proceed quietly and 

routinely. The program was to begin in April1952. 79 

Integration of the European Command proceeded without incident, but the 

administrative task was complicated and frequently delayed by the problem of 

black overstrength. Handy directed that Negroes be assigned as individuals in a 

1 to 10 ratio in all units although he would tolerate a higher ratio in service and 

temporary duty units during the early stages of the program.80 This figure was 

adjusted upward the following year to a maximum of 12 percent black for armor 

and infantry units, 15 percent for com bat engineers and artillery, and 17.5 percent for all other units. During the process of integrating the units, a 25 percent 

black strength was authorized. 81 

76Ltr, Ginzbcrg to Burgess. II Nov 55, CMH files. 71Sec:, for example, Pathfinder Magazine 58 (May 7, 1952): II. Sec also Ltr, Philleo Nash to Donald 

Dawson, 27 May 52. Nash Collection. Truman Library; Lt.r, Brig Gcn Charles T. Lanham to Evans, 7 Aug 51, 

CMH files; CINFO Summary Shcct,12 Jun 52. sub: Query Washington Bureau, NAACP. CSA 291.2. 78Msg, CofSA to CINCEUR, 4 Dec 51, DA 88688. 7

?Ltr. AG. EUCOM, to CofSA. 14 Dec 51 , sub: Racial Integration in Combat Uniu: G-1 Summary Sheet, 

24 Jan 52. same sub: Ltr, CofSA to Handy. 15 Feb 52; Msg, CINCEUR to CofSA. 22 Mar 52. DA IN 119235; 

Nlsg. CofSA to CINCEUR, DA 904459. 24 Mar 52. All in CS 291.2. 80Memo, CINCEUCOM for Commanding Generals ct al.. I Apr 52. sub: Racial Integration of EUCOM 

Arrn\ Units. copy in CS 291.2 

8 Shcr Monograph, p. 27. 
452 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

The ratios were raised because the percentage of Negroes in the command 

continued to exceed the 1 to 10 ratio and was still increasing. In September 1953 

the new commander, General Alfred M. Gruenther, tried to slow the rate of increaseY He got Washington to halt the shipment of black units, and he himself 

instituted stricter reenlistment standards in Europe . Finally, he warned that 

with fewer segregated units to which black troops might be assigned, the racial 

imbalance was becoming more critical, and he asked for a deferment of the ptogram's completion. 83 The Army staff promised to try to alleviate the racial 

disproportions in the replacement stream, but asked Gruenther to proceed as 

quickly as possible with integration.84 

There was little the Army staff could do. The continental commands had the 

same overstrength problem, and the staff considered the European Command 

an inappropriate place to raise black percentages. By mid-195 3 Negroes accounted for some 16 percent of Army personnel in Europe and, more important 

to the command, the number of Negroes with combat occupation specialties 

continued to increase at the same rate. As an alternative to the untenable practice of reclassifying combat-trained men for noncombat assignments purely on 

account of race, Gruenther again raised the acceptable ratio of blacks in combat 

units. At the same time he directed the Seventh Army commander to treat ratios 

in the future merely as guidelines, to be adhered to as circumstances 

permitted. ~ The percentag·e of Negroes in the command leveled off at this 

time, but not before the black proportion of the command's transportation 

units reached 48.8 percent. Summing up his command's policy on integration, 

Gruenther concluded: I I I cannot permit the assignment of large numbers of unqualified personnel, regardless of race, to prejudice the operation readiness of 

our units in an effort to attain 100 percent racial integration, however desirable 

that goal may be.' '

86 A heavy influx of white replacements with transportation 

specialties allowed the European Command to finish integrating the elements of 

the Seventh Army in July 1954.87 The last black unit in the command, the 94th 

Engineer Battalion, was inactivated in November. 

Integration of black troops in Europe proved successful on several counts, 

with the Army, in Assistant Secretary Fred Korth's words, "achieving benefits 

therefrom substantially greater than we had anticipated at its inception. " 88 The 

82 As of 1 August 1952 the major joint American command in Europe was designated U.S. European Command (USEUCOM). The U.S. Army element in this command was designated U.S. Army, Europe 

(USAREUR). Gruenther was the commander in chief of the European Command from July 1953 to November 

1956. At the same time he occupied the senior position in the NATO Command under the title Supreme 

Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR). 83Memo, USCINCEUR for TAG, 30 Sep 53, sub: Racial Integration of USAREUR Units, AG 291.2 (30 

Sep 53); see also Sher Monograph, pp. 24- 27. 84Mcmos, G-1 for TAG, 30 Oct 53, sub: Negro Overstrength in USAREUR. and TAG for USCINCEUR, 

2 Nov 53, same sub; both in AG 291.2 (30 Oct 53). 85Ltr, USCINCEUR to CG. Seventh Army. 8 Jul 53. sub: Racial Integration of USAREUR Units, 

USAREUR AG 291.2 (1953). 

" 86Ltr. CINCUSAREUR to SACEUR, 10 Apr 53. USAREUR SGS 291 .2 (1953), quoted in Sher Monograph, 

p. 28. 

87Hq USAREUR, ''Annual Historical Report, I January 1953-30 June 1954, '' p. 60, in CMH. 88Memo, ASA (M&RF) for J. C. Evans, OASD (M), 26 Nov 52, sub: Negro Integration in Europe, SD 

2912. 
THE ARMY INTEGRATES 453 

command's combat readiness increased, he claimed, while its racial incidents 

and disciplinary problems declined. The reaction of the soldiers was, again in 

Korth's words, _"generally good" with incidents stemming from integration 

''fewer and much farther between. ' ' Moreover, the program had been a definite 

advantage in counteracting Communist propaganda, with no evidence of problems with civilians arising from social integration. More eloquent testimony to 

the program's success appeared in the enthusiasm of the European Command's 

senior officials. 89 Their fears and uncertainties eased, they abruptly reversed 

their attitudes and some even moved from outright opposition to praise for the 

program as one of their principal achievements. 

The smaller overseas commands also submitted plans to Army headquarters 

for the breakup of their segregated units in 1951, and integration of the Alaskan 

Command and the rest proceeded during 1952 without incident. 90 At the same 

time the continental Army commands, faced with similar manpower problems, 

began making exceptions, albeit considerably more timidly than the great 

overseas commands, to the assignment of Negroes to black units. As early as 

September 1951 the Army G-1 discovered instances of unauthorized integration in every Army area, 91 the result of either unrectified administrative errors or 

the need to find suitable assignments for black replacements. ''The concern 

sh_own by you over the press reaction to integrating these men into white units,'' 

the Sixth Army commander, Lt. Gen. Joseph M. Swing, reported to the Army 

staff, "causes me to guess that your people may not realize the extent to which 

integration has already progressed-at least in the Sixth Army. " 92 Swing concluded that gradual integration had to be the solution to the Army's race problems everywhere. McAuliffe agreed with Swing that the continental commands 

should be gradually integrated, but, as he put it, "the difficulty is that my 

superiors are not prepared to admit that we are already launched on a progressive integration program" in the United States. The whole problem was a 

very touchy one, McAuliffe added.93 

The Army staff had agreed to halt the further integration of units in the 

United States until the results of the overseas changes had been carefully analyzed. Nevertheless, even while the integration of the Far East forces was proceeding, General McAuliffe's office prepared a comprehensive two-phase plan 

for the integration of the continental armies. It would consolidate all temporary 

units then separated into racial elements, redistributing all Negroes among the 

organized white units; then, Negroes assigned to black components of larger 

white units would be absorbed into similar white units through normal attrition 

89Ltr, Ginzberg to Burgess, 15 Nov 55. CMH files; Ernest Leiser, "For Negroes, It's a New Army Now," 

Saturday Evening Post 225 (December 13, 1952):26-27, 108-12. 

9°on the integration of these commands, see, for example, G-1 Summary Sheet, 4 Sep 52. sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel; Ltr, CG, USARAL, to DA, 15 Sep 51; Ltr, G-1 co Maj Gen Julian Cunningham, 22 

Oct 51. All in G-1 291.2. 

91Memo. Chief, Manpower Control Div, G-1, for Gen Taylor, 6 Sep 51, sub: Negro Integration, G-1 

291.2. 

92Ltr, CG, Sixth Army, to ACofS. G-1, 10 Sep 51, G-1 291.2 Negroes. 

93Ltr, G-1 to CG, Sixth Army, 17 Sep 51, G-1 291.2 . 
454 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

VISIT WITH THE COMMANDER. Soldiers of the Ordnance Branch, Berlin Command, 

m eet with Brig. Gen. Charles F. Craig. 

or by concentrated levies on the black units. McAuliffe estimated that the whole 

process would take two year ~ 

McAuliffe's plan was put into effect when General Collins ordered 

worldwide integration in December 1952. The breakdown of the "10 percent 

Army" proceeded uneventfully, and the old black units disappeared. The 9th 

and lOth Cavalry Regiments, now converted into the 509th and SlOth Tank Battalions (Negro), received white replacements and dropped the racial designation. The 25th Infantry, now broken down into smaller units, was integrated in 

September 1952. On 12 October 1953 Assistant Secretary of Defense John Hannah announced that 95 percent of the Army's Negroes were serving in integrated units with the rest to be so assigned not later than June 1954.9) His 

94

C-I Summary Sheet for CofS, 21 Sep 51, sub: C- 1 Auitude Toward Integration of Negroes Into 

CONUS Units, CS 291.2 Negroes (21 Scp 51). The staff's decision to halt further integration was announced 

in Memo, ACofS. C-1, for ACofS, G- 3. 18 Jul 5t. G-t 291.2. 

9)U.S. New5 atJd World Report 35 (October 16, 1953):99-100. 
THE ARMY INTEGRATES 455 

BROTHERS UNDER THE SKIN, inductees at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, 195 3. 

estimate was off by several months. The European Command's 94th Engineer 

Battalion, the last major all-black unit, was inactivated in November 1954, 

several weeks after the Secretary of Defense had announced the end of all 

segregated units.96 

Like a man who discovers that his profitable deeds are also virtuous, the Army discussed its new racial policy with considerable pride. From company commander to general officer the report was that the Army worked better; integration was desirable, and despite all predictions to the 'contrary, it was a success. 

Military commentators in and out of uniform stoutly defended the new system 

against its few critics.97 Most pointed to Korea as the proving ground for the new 

policy. Assistant Secretary of Defense Hannah generalized about the change to 

integration: "Official analyses and reports indicate a definite increase in combat 

effectiveness in the overseas areas .... From experience in Korea and 

96Hq USAREUR, "Annual Historical Report, I July 1954- 30 June 1955," p. 83. 

97Scc, for example, Semiannual Repori of the Secretary of Defeme, january I - june 30, 1953, p . 24; ibid., 

January !- June 30, 1954 , pp. 21-22; and annual reports of the Secretary of the Army for same period, as well 

as CINCUSAREUR's response to criticisms by General Mark Clark, Amiy Times, May 19. 1956, and S. L. A. 

Marshall's devastating rejoinder to General Almond in the Detroit News, May 13, 1956. Clark's views are 

reported in U.S. News and World Report 40 (May II, 1956). Sec also Lcr, Lt Col Gordon Hill, CINFO, tO joan 

Rosen, WCBS, 17 Apr 64, CMH files; New York Herald Tribune, May 14, 1956; New York Times May 6. 

1956. 
456 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

elsewhere, Army commanders have determined, also, that more economical and 

effective results accrue from the policies which remove duplicate facilities and 

operations based upon race. '' 98 The Army, it would seem, had made a complete 

about-face in its argument from efficiency. 

But integration did more than demonstrate a new form of military efficiency. It also stilled several genuine fears long entertained by military leaders. 

Many thoughtful officials had feared that the social mingling that would inevitably accompany integration in the continental United States might lead to 

racial incidents and a breakdown in discipline. The new policy seemed to prove 

this fear groundless.99 A 1953 Army-sponsored survey reported that, with the 

single major exception of racially separate dances for enlisted men at postoperated service clubs on southern bases, segregation involving uniformed. men 

and women now stopped at the gates of the military reservation. 100 Army headquarters, carefully monitoring the progress of social integration, found it 

without incident. 101 At the same time the survey revealed that some noncommissioned officers' clubs and enlisted men's dubs tended to segregate 

themselves, but no official notice was taken of this tendency, and not one such 

instance was a source of racial complaint in 195 3. The survey also discovered that 

racial attitudes in adjacent communities had surprisingly little influence on the 

relations between white and black soldiers on post. Nor was there evidence of 

any appreciable resentment toward integration on the part of white civilian 

employees, even when they worked with or under black officers and enlisted 

men. 

The on-post dance, a valuable morale builder, was usually restricted to one 

race because commanders were afraid of arousing antagonism in nearby communities. But even here restrictions were not uniform. Mutual use of dance 

floors by white and black couples was frequent though not commonplace and 

was accepted in officers' clubs, many noncommissioned officers' clubs, and at 

special unit affairs. The rules for social integration were flexible, and many adjustments could be made to the sentiments of the community if the commander 

had the will and the tact. Some commanders, unaware of what was being accomplished by progressive colleagues, were afraid to establish a precedent, and 

often avoided practices that were common elsewhere. 'Social scientists reviewing 

the situation suggested that the Army should acquaint the commanders with 

the existing wide range of social possibilities. 

Fear of congressional disapproval, another reason often given for deferring 

integration, was exaggerated, as a meeting between Senator Richard B. Russell 

98Ltr, Hannah, ASD (M), to Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson, 27 Feb 53, ASD (M) 291.2. 

990nc exception was the mong objection in some states to racially mixed marriages contracted by soldiers. 

Twenty-seven states had some form of miscegenation law. The Army therefore did not assign tO stations in 

those states soldiers who by reason of their mixed marriages might be subject to criminal penalties. Sec Memo, 

Chief. Classification and Standards Branch, DCSPER, for Planning Office, 28 Feb 50, sub: Assignment of Personnel; DF, DCSPER to TAG, 4 Jun :54; both in DCSPER 291.2. For funher discussion of the matter, see TAGO, Policy Paper, July 1954; New York Post, November 13, 1957. 100HUMRRO, Integration of Social Activities on Nine Army Posts, Aug 53. See also Interv, Nichols with 

Davis. A DCSPER action officer, Davis was intimately involved with the Army's integration program during this period. 

f

01 Intcrv, author with Evans, 4 Dec 73. CMH files. 
THE ARMY INTEGRATES 457 

and James Evans in early 1952 demonstrated. At the request of the manpower 

secretary, Evans went to Capito[ Hill to inform the chairman of the Armed Services Committee that for reasons of military efficiency the Army was going to integrate. Senator Russell observed that he had oeen unable to do some things he 

wanted to do "because your people [black voters] weren't strong enough 

politically to support me." Tell the secretary, Russell added, "that I won't help 

him integrate, but I won't hinder him either-and neither will anyone else." 102 

The senator was true to his word. News of the Army's integration program 

passed quietly through the halls of Congress without public or private protest. 

Much opposition to integration was based on the fear that low-scoring black 

soldiers, handicapped by deficiencies in schooling and training, would weaken 

integrated units as they had the all-black units. But integration proved to be the 

best solution. As one combat commander put it, "Mix 'urn up and you get a 

strong line all the way; segregate 'urn and you have a point of weakness in your 

line. The enemy hits you there, and it's bug out. " 103 Korea taught the Army 

that aq integrated unit was not as weak as its weakest men, but as strong as its 

leadership and training. Integration not only diluted the impact of the less 

qualified by distributing them more widely, but also brought about measurable 

improvement in the performance and standards of a large number of black 

soldiers. 

Closely related to the concern over the large number of ill-qualified soldiers 

was the fear of the impact of integration on a quota-free Army. The Project 

CLEAR team concluded that a maximum of 15 to 20 percent black srrength 

"seems to be an effective interim working level." 104 General McAuliffe pointed 

out in November 1952 that he was trying to maintain a balanced distribution of 

black troops, not only geographically but also according to combat and service 

specialties (see Tables 9 and 1 0). Collins decided to retain the ceiling on black 

combat troops-no more than 12 percent in any combat unit- but he agreed 

that a substantially higher percentage was ~cceptable in all other units. 10) 

These percentages were pare of a larger concern over the number of Negroes 

in the Army as a whole. Based on the evidence of draft-swollen enlistment 

statistics, it seemed likely that the 15 to 20 percent figure would be reached or 

surpassed in 1953 or 1954, and there was some discussion in the staff about 

restoring the quota. But such talk quickly faded as the Korean War wound 

down and the percentage declined. Negroes constituted 14.4 percent of enlisted 

strength in December 1952 and leveled off by the summer of 1955 at 11.9 percent. Statistics for the European Command illustrated the trend. In June 1955, 

Negroes accounted for 3.6 percent of the command's officer strength and 11.4 

percent of its enlisted strength. The enlisted figure represents a drop from a 

high of 16.1 percent in June 1953. The percentage of black troops was down to 

102lbid. 10'Quoced in John B. Spore and Robert F. Cocklin. ·'Our Negro Soldiers." Reporter 6 (January 22, 

1952):6-9. 

104I.u, Dir, ORO, co ACofS, G-3. 20 Nov 52. G-~ 291.2. 10SMemo for Red. G-1, 6 Nov 52, ref: ACofS. G-1, Memo for CofS. sub: Distribution of Negro Person· 

net. 14 Oct 52. G-1 291.2. 
458 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

TABI.f. 9- WORI.OWIOE DISTRJJlU'J'ION OF ENLISTED ERSONN~L 6Y RACE, OCTOBER 1952 

(In Thousands) 

European Far East Other Overseas Continental 

Category Command Command Commands United States 

White ......... 212.1 293.1 96.0 649.2 

Black .... ...... 35.6 4U 5.82 110.6 

Total ...... 247.7 334.6 101.8 759.8 

Percent black .... !4.4 12.4 5.7 14 .6 

Toea I 

1,250.5 

193.4 

1,445.9 

1;.4 

'Restrictions remained in effect on the assignment of Negroes to certain stations in USARPAC. TRUST, and USARCARIB. 

Souree: Memo, Chief, Per and Dist Br. G-1 , for ACofS, G-1. 8 Oct ~2 . sub: Distribution of Negro Enlisted Personnel, 

G-1. 291.2. 

TABLE 10-DISTRIBUTION OF BLIICK ENLISTED PERSONNEL BY BRANCH AND RANK, 31 OCTOBER 1952 

Branch AUS 

Total 

Armor ..... . ....... •...... ... . 7. 738 

Artillery ... . . .. . ......... .... . • 33.684 

Infantry ..... .. . .............. • 37,220 

Adjutant General's Corps .... ... • 1,074 

Chemical Corps ................. 1.504 

Corps of Engineers .............. 18.987 

Military Police Corps ........... . . 3.012 

Finance Corps .................. 68 

Army Medical Service ...... . ..... 9.896 

Ordnance Corps ..........•..... 5,683 

Quartermaster Corps ...... •. . .. • 9.690 

Signal Corps .................. . 6.923 

Transportation Corps .....•...... 16.380 

Women's Army Corps .. . . . ...... 1,310 

No Branch assignment• ......... .. 42.643 

Total . ................ .... 195.812• 

'In training. bfigurrs show black percentage of total Army cnlistmems. <Dtscrepancy with Table 9. which is based on September figures. Source: STM-30, 31 Oct ~2. 

Regular 

Percemb Total Perccntb 

13.7 3,565 13.8 

16.9 14,854 19 .9 

14.1 15,713 14.9 

8.8 663 10.8 

15.5 633 20.1 

16.4 8 •. H5 17.9 

8.1 1,751 9.8 

2.4 5I 5.3 

12.2 4.439 12.9 

10.2 2.598 12.0 

20.8 4.187 20.6 

8.2 3.192 8.7 

31.2 8.765 38.2 

13. I 1,283 13.3 

11.4 17.779 11.7 

87.788 

11.2 percent of the command's total strength-officers, warrant officers, and 

enlisted men- by June 1956. The reduction is explained in pare by a policy 

adopted by all commands in February 195 5 of refusing, with certain exceptions, 

to reenlist three-year veterans who scored Jess than ninety in the classification 

tests. In Europe alone some 5, 300 enlisted men were not permitted co reenlist in 

1955. Slightly more chan 25 percent were black. 

106 

The racial quota, in the guise of an ''acceptable'' percentage of Negroes in 

individual units, continued to operate long after the Army agreed to abandon 

it. No one, black or white, appears to have voiced in the early 1950's the logical 

observation that the establishment of a racial quota. in individual Army 

units-whatever the percentage and the grounds for that percentage- was in 

itself a residual form of discrimination. Nor did anyone ask how establishing a 

race quota, clearly distinct from restricting men according to mental, moral, or 

106Hq USAREUR, "Annual Historical Report, I July 1954- 30 June 1955." pp. 76- 80, 92; ibid., I July 

1955-30 June 1956. pp. 65-67. 
THE ARMY INTEGRATES 459 

professional standards, could achieve the "effective working level" posited by 

the Army's scientific advisers. 

These questions would still be pertinent years later because the alternative to 

the racial quota-the enlistment and assignment of men without regard for 

color- would continue to be unacceptable to many. They would argue that to 

abandon the quota, as the services did in the 1960's, was to violate the concept 

of racial balance, which is yet another hallmark of an egalitarian society. For example, during the Vietnam War some black Americans complained that too 

many Negroes were serving in the more dangerous combat arms. Since men 

were assigned without regard to race, these critics were in effect asking for the 

quota again, reminding the service chat the population of the United States was 

only some 11 percent black. And during discussions of the all-volunteer Army a 

decade later, critics would be asking how the white majority would react to an 

army 30 or even 50 percent black. 

These considerations were clearly beyond the ken of the men who integrated 

the Army in the early 1950's. They concentrated instead on the perplexities of 

enlisting and assigning vast numbers of segregated black soldiers during wartime and closely watched the combat performance of black units in Korea. Integration provided the Army with a way co fill its depleted combat units 

quickly. The shortage of white troops forced local commanders to turn to the 

growing surplus of black soldiers awaiting assignment to a limited number of 

black units. Manpower restrictions did not permit the formation of new black 

units merely co accommodate the excess, and in any case experience with the 

24th Infantry had strengthened the Army staff's conviction that black combat 

units did not perform well. However commanders may have felt about the social 

implications of integration, and whatever they thought of the fighting ability of 

black units, the only choice left to them was integration. When the Chief of 

Staff ordered the integration of the Far East Command in 1951, what had begun 

as a battlefield expedient became official policy. 

Segregation became unworkable when the Army lost its power to limit the 

number of black soldiers. Abandonment of the quota on enlistments, pressed 

on the Army by the Fahy Committee, proved compatible with segregated units 

only so long as the need for fighting men was not acute. In Korea the need 

became acute. Ironically, the Gillem Board, whose work became anathema to 

the integrationists, accurately predicted the demise of segregation in its final 

report, which declared that in the event of another major war the Army would 

use its manpower "without regard to antecedents or race.'' 
CHAPTER 18 

Integration of the Marine Corps 

Even more so than in the. Army, the history of racial equality in the Marine 

Corps demonstrates the effect of the exigencies of war on the integration of the 

armed forces. The Truman order, the Fahy Committee, even the demands of 

civil rights leaders and the mandates of the draft law, all exerted pressure for 

reform and assured the presence of some black marines. But the Marine Corps 

was for years able to stave off the logical outcome of such pressures, and in the 

end it was the manpower demands of the Korean War that finally brought integration. 

In the first place the Korean War caused a sudden and dramatic rise in the 

number of black marines: from 1,525 men, almost half of them stewards, in 

May 1949, to some 17,000 men, only 500 of them serving in separate stewards 

duty, in October 1953. 1 Whereas the careful designation of a few segregated service units sufficed to handle the token black representation in 1949, no such 

organization was possible in 1952, when thousands of black marines on active 

duty constituted more than 5 percent of the total enlistment. The decision to integrate the new black marines throughout the corps was the natural outcome of 

the service's early experiences in Korea. Ordered to field a full division, the 

corps out of necessity turned to the existing black service units, among others, 

for men to augment the peacetime strength of its combat units. These men were 

assigned to any unit in the Far East that needed them. As the need for more 

units and replacements grew during the war. newly enlisted black marines were 

more and more often pressed into integrated service both in the Far East and at 

home . 

Most significantly, the war provided a rising generation of Marine Corps officers with a first combat experience with black marines. The competence of 

these Negroes and the general absence of racial tension during their integration 

destroyed long accepted beliefs to the contrary and opened the way for general 

integration. Although the corps continued to place special restrictions on the 

employment of Negroes and was still wrestling with the problem of black 

stewards well into the next decade. its basic policy of segregating marines by race 

ended with the cancellation of the last all-black unit designation in 1951. 

Hastily embraced by the corps as a solution to a pressing manpower problem, integration was finally accepted as a permanent manpower policy. 

1 All statistics from official Marine Corps sources. Hist Div, HQMC. 
INTEGRATION OF THE MARINE CORPS 461 

Impetus for Change 

This transformation seemed remote in 1949 in view of Commandant Clifton B. Cates's strong defense of segregation. At that time Cates made a careful 

distinction between allocating men to the services without regard to race, which 

he supported, and ordering integration of the services themselves. "Changing 

national policy in this respect through the Armed Forces," he declared, "is a 

dangerous path to pursue inasmuch as it effects [s£c] the ability of the National 

Military Establishment to fulfill its mission." 2 Integration of the services had to 

follow, not precede, integration of American society. 

The commandant's views were spelled out in a series of decisions announced 

by the corps in the wake of the Secretary of the Navy's call for integration of all 

elements of the Navy Department in 1949. On 18 November 1949 the corps' 

Acting Chief of Staff announced a new racial policy: individual black marines 

would be assigned in accordance with their specialties to vacancies "in any unit 

where their services can be effectively utilized," but segregated black units 

would be retained and new ones created when appropriate in the regular and 

reserve components of the corps. In the case of the reserve component, the decision on the acceptance of an applicant was vested in the unit commander. 3 On 

the same day the commandant made it clear that the policy was not to be interpreted too broadly. Priority for the assignment of individual black marines, 

Cates informed the commander of the Pacific Department, would be given to 

the support establishment and black officers would be assigned to black units 

only.4 

Further limiting the chances that black marines would be integrated, Cates 

approved the creation of four new black units. The Director. of Personnel and 

the Marine Quartermaster had opposed this move on the grounds that the new 

units would require technical billets, particularly in the supply specialties, which 

would be nearly impossible to fill with available enlisted black marines. Either 

school standards would have to be lowered or white marines would have to be 

assigned to the units. Cates met this objection by agreeing with the Director of 

Plans and Policies that no prohibition existed against racial mixing in a unit during a period of on-the-job training. The Director of Personnel would decide 

when a unit was sufficiently trained and properly manned to be officially 

designated a black organization.) In keeping with this arrangement, for example, the commanding general of the 2d Marine Division reported in February 

1950 that his black marines were sufficiently trained to assume complete operation of the depot platoon within the division's service command. Cates then 

2Memo, CMC for Asst SecNav for Air, 17 Mar 49. MC files. 

lMC Memo 119-14, 18 Nov 49. sub: Policy Regarding Negro Marines, Hist Div, HQMC, files. Unless 

otherwise noted, all documents in this section are located in these files. 

4Msg. CMC (signed C. B. Cates) tO CG. Dept of Pacific, 18 Nov 49. Aware of the delicate public relations 

aspects of this subjecr, the Director of Pla1lS and Policies recommended that this message be classified; see 

Memo, E. A. Pollock for Assr CMC. 8 Nov 49. 

)DP&P Study 119-49. 14 Nov 49. sub: Designation of Units for Assignment of Negro Marines, approved 

by CMC. 2 Dec 49. 
462 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

designated the platoon as a unit suitable for general duty black marines, which 

prompted the Coordinator of Enlisted Personnel to point out that current 

regulations stipulated "after a unit has been so designated, all white enlisted 

personnel will be withdrawn and reassigned. ' '

6 

Nor were there any plans for the general integration of black reservists, 

although some Negroes were serving in formerly all-white units. The 9th Infantry Battalion, for instance, had a black lieutenant. As the assistant commandant, Maj. Gen. Oliver P. Smith, put it on 4 January 1950, black units would be 

formed ''in any area where there is an expressed interest'' provided that the 

black population was large enough to support it. 

7 When the NAACP objected 

to the creation of another all-black reserve unit in New York City as being contrary to Defense Department policy, the Marine Corps justified it on the 

grounds that the choice of integrated or segregated units must be made by the 

local community "in accord with its cultural values. " 8 Notwithstanding the 

Secretary of the Navy's integration order and assignment policies directed 

toward effective utilization, it appeared that the Marine Corps in early 1950 was 

determined to retain its system of racially segregated units indefinitely. 

But the corps failed to reckon with the consequences of the war that broke 

out suddenly in Korea in June. Two factors connected with that conflict caused 

an abrupt change in Marine race policy. The first was the great influx of Negroes 

into the corps. Although the commandant insisted that race was not considered 

in recruitment, and in fact recruitment instructions since 1948 contained no 

reference to the race of applicants, few Negroes had joined the Marine Corps in 

the two years preceding the war.9 In its defense the corps pointed to its exceedingly small enlistment quotas during those years and its high enlistment 

standards, which together allowed recruiters to accept only a few men. The 

classification test average for all recruits enlisted in 1949 was 108, while the 

average for black enlistees during the same period was 94.7. New black recruits 

were almost exclusively enlisted for stewards duty. 10 

A revision of Defense Department manpower policy combined with the 

demands of the war to change all that. The imposition of a qualitative distribution of manpower by the Secretary of Defense in April 1950 meant that among 

the thousands of recruits enlisted during the Korean War the Marine Corps 

would have to accept its share of the large percentage of men in lower classification test categories. Among these men were a significant number of black 

enlistees who had failed to qualify under previous standards. They were joined 

6Memo, CG, 2d Marine Div, for CMC, 18 Feb ~0. sub: Assignment of Negro Enlisted Personnel; Memo, 

CMC co CG, 2d Marine Div, 28 Mar 50, sub: Dcs.ignation of the Depot Platoon, Support Company, Second 

Combat Service Group, Service Command, for Assignment of Negro Enlisted Marines; MC Routing Sheet, 

Enlisted Coordinator, Personnel Department, 27 Mar ~0. same sub. 7Ltr, Smith to franklin S. Williams, Asst Special Counsel, NAACP, 4 Jan ~0. A0-1, MC files. 

8Ltr, Roy Wilkins to SecDef, 27 Feb ~0; Memo, SecNav for SecDef. 17 Apr ~0. sub: Activation of Negro 

Reserve Units in the U.S. Marine Corps; both in SecDef 291.2. Sec also Ltr, Asst CMC to Franklin Williams, 7 

Feb ~0. 

9Ltr, CMC to Walter White, 2 Jul 51. 10Memo, Div of Plans and Policies for Asst Dir of Public Info. 4 Jun ~I , sub: Article in Pittsburgh Courier 

of 26 May ~I. 
INTEGRATION OF THE MARINE CORPS 463 

by thousands more who were supplied through the nondiscriminatory process of 

the Selective Service System when, during the war, the corps began using the 

draft. The result was a 100 percent jump in the number of black marines in the 

first year of war, a figure that would be multiplied almost six times before war 

inductions ran down in 1953. (Table 11) 

1'ABLF.ll - BLACK MARINES, 1949-1955 

Percent 

Dare Officers Enlisted Men of Corps 

July 1949 ........ ------ 0 1,525 1.6 

July 1950 ..... ......... 0 1,605 1.6 

January 19H .......... . 2 2,077 1.2 

July 1951 ..........•.. . 3 3,145 1.6 

January 1952 ....... •... 3 8,315 3. 7 

July 1952 .......... . ... NA 13,858 6.0 

January 1953 .. .... ..... 10 14,479 6.1 

July 1953 .............. 13 1), 729 6.0 

November 1953 .. ...... 18 16.906 6.7 

June 1954 ........... .. 19 15.682 6.5 

January 195 5 .......... . 19 12.456 u 

A second factor forcing a change in racial policy was the manpower demands 

imposed upon the corps by the war itself. When General MacArthur called for 

the deployment of a Marine regimental combat team and supporting air group 

on 2 July 1950, the Secretary of the Navy responded by sending the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade, which included the 5th Marine Regiment, the 1st Battalion of the 11th Marines (Artillery), and Marine Air Group 33. By 13 

September the 1st Marine Division and the 1st Marine Air Wing at wartime 

strength had been added. Fielding these forces placed an enormous strain on the 

corps' manpower, and one result was the assignment of a number of black service units, often combined with white units in composite organizations, to the 

combat units. 

The pressures of battle quickly altered this neat arrangement. Theoretically, 

every marine was trained as an infantryman, and when shortages occurred in 

combat units commanders began assigning black replacements where needed. 

For example, as the demand for more marines for the battlefield grew, the 

Marine staff began to pull black marines from routine duties at the Marine Barracks in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Hawaii and send them to Korea to bring 

the fighting units up to full strength. The first time black servicemen were integrated as individuals in significant numbers under combat conditions was in 

the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade during the fighting in the Pusan Perimeter in 

August 1950. The assignment of large numbers of black marines throughout the 

combat units of the 1st Marine Division, beginning in September, provided the 

clearest instance of a service abandoning a social policy in response to the 

demands of the battlefield. The 7th Marines, for example, an organic element 

of the 1st Marine Division since August 1950, received into its rapidly expanding ranks, along with many recalled white reservists and men from small, 
464 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

miscellaneous Marine units, a 54-man black service unit. The regimental commander immediately broke up the black unit, assigning the men individually 

throughout his combat battalions. 

That the emergency continued to influence the placement of Negroes is apparent from the distribution of black marines in March 1951, when almost half 

were assigned to combat duty in integrated units. 11 Before the war was over, the 

1st Marine Division had several thousand black marines, serving in its ranks in 

Korea, where they were assigned to infantry and signal units as well as to 

transportation and food supply organizations. One of the few black reserve officers on active duty found himself serving as an infantry platoon commander in 

Company B of the division's 7th Marines. 

The shift to integration in Korea proved uneventful. In the words of the 7th 

Marines commander: ''Never once did any color problem bother us ... . It just 

wasn't any problem. We had one Negro sergeant in command of an all-white 

squad and there was another- with a graves registration unit-who was one of 

the finest Marines I've ever seen." 12 Serving for the first time in integrated 

units, Negroes proceeded to perform in a way that not only won many individuals decorations for valor but also won the respect of commanders for 

Negroes as fighting men. Reminiscing about the performance of black marines 

in his division, Lt. Gen. Oliver P. Smith remembered "they did everything, and 

they did a good job because they were integrated, and they were with good people.'' 13 In making his point the division commander contrasted the performance 

of his integrated men with the Army's segregated 24th Infantry. The observations of field commanders, particularly the growing opinion that a connection 

existed between good performance and integration, were bound to affect the 

deliberations of the Division of Plans and Policies when it began to restudy the 

question of black assignments in the fall of 1951. 

As a result of the division's study, the Commandant of the Marine Corps announced a general policy of racial integration on 13 December 1951, thus 

abolishing the system first introduced in 1942 of designating certain units in the 

regular forces and organized reserves as black units. 14 He spelled out the new 

ll 

Locatiot1 of Black Marines, 31 March 1951 

Pom and stations inside the United States.... ......... . . . ........ ... ... . .... . .. . . . ..... . .... 938 

Posts and stations outside the United States.......... . . . . . • . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . 181 

~~~~~~~a.i~~~~ ~.n i~s. : : : : : : : : : :: :: : : : : :: : : :::: : :: :: : : : : :: : : :: : :: : :::: : : : : : :: : :: :: : : :: :: : : ~ Fleet Marine Force (Ground) ..... • . . .... • ......... . ....... . ...... . .. • .. .. . . .. . . . .. . . .. . .. . 1, 327 

Ships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . • . . . . . • . . . . . • . . . . . • . . . 3 

En route.. . .. .. . .......... . .... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 

Missing in action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 

Total. .. . ...... . ......... . . . . .. . . .. . . . .. . . . . .. .. . . .. . .. .. . .. . .. ..... . . .. . .. . ...... 2, 708 

Source: Tab I to Memo, ACofS, G-1, to Assr Dir of Public Info, 6 Jun 51 , sub: Queries Concerning Negro 

Marines. 12WashingtonPost, February 27. 1951. 

13USMC Oral History Interview, Lt Gen Oliver P. Smith, Jun 69. 14MC Policy Memo 109- 51 , 13 Dec 51. sub: Policy Regarding Negro Marines. 
INTEGRATION OF THE MARINE CORPS 465 

MARINES ON THE KANSAS LINE. KOREA. Men of the 1st Marines await word to move 

out. 

order in some detail on 18 December, and although his comments were addressed to the commanders in the Fleet Marine Force, they were also forwarded 

to various commands in the support establishment that still retained all-black 

units. The order indicated tht the practices now so commonplace in Korea were 

about to become the rule in the United States. 15 Some six months later the commandant informed the Chief of Naval Personnel that the Marine Corps had no 

segregated units and while integration had been gradual "it was believed to be 

an accomplished fact at this time.'' 16 

The change was almost immediately apparent in other parts of the corps, for 

black marines were also integrated in units serving with the fleet. Reporting on a 

Mediterranean tour of the 3d Battalion, 6th Marines (Reinforced), from 17 April 

to 20 October 1952, Capt. Thomas L. Faix, a member of the unit, noted: "We 

have about fifteen Negro marines in our unit now, out of fifty men. We have 

but very little trouble and they sleep, eat and go on liberty together. It would be 

hard for many to believe but the thought is that here in the service all are facing 

a common call or summons to service regardless of color. " 17 Finally, in August 

!)Memo, CMC for CG, FMF, Pacific, ec al., 18 Dec 51, sub: Assignment of Negro Enlisted Personnel. 

16Idem for Chief, NavPers (ca. Jun 51), MC files. 17

Exrract from Thomas L. Faix, " Marines on Tour (An Account of Mediterranean Goodwill Cruise and 
466 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

MARINE REINFORCEMENTS. A light machine gun squad of 3d Battalion, 1st 

Marines, affives during the battle for ''Boulder City. II 

1953. Lt. Gen. Gerald C. Thomas, who framed the postwar segregation policy, 

announced that "integration of Negroes in the Corps is here to stay. Colored 

boys are in almost every military occupation specialty and certainly in every 

enlisted rank. I believe integration is satisfactory to them, and it is satisfactory to 

S It 18 u. 

Assignments 

The 1951 integration order ushered in a new era in the long history of the 

Marine Corps, but despite th e abolition of segregated units, the new policy did 

not bring about completely unrestricted employment of Negroes throughout 

the corps. The commandant had retained the option to employ black marines 

"where their services can be effectively utilized," and in the years after the 

Korean War it became apparent that the corps recognized definite limits to the 

kinds of duty co which black marines could be assigned. Following standard 

assignment procedures, the Department of Personnel's Detail Branch selected 

individual staff noncommissioned officers for specific duty billets. After screening the records of a marine and considering his race, the branch could reject the 

Naval Occupation Dury), Third Battalion. Sixth Marines (Reinforced), April 17-0ctober 20, 19~2." in Essays 

and Topics of Interest: 114, Race Relations, p. 36. 1

8Thc Chief of Staff was quoted in ''lntcgration of the Armed Forces,'' Ebo11y 13 (July 19~8) :22. 
INTEGRATION OF THE MARINE CORPS 467 

assignment of a Negro to a billet for any reason "of overriding interest to the 

Marine Corps.'' 19 

By the same token, the assignment of marines in the lower ranks was left to 

the individual commands, which filled quotas established by headquarters. 

Commanders usually filled the quotas from among eligible men longest on station, but whether or not Negroes were included in a transfer quota was left entirely to the discretion of the local commander. The Department of Personnel 

reserved the right, however, to make one racial distinction in regard to bulk 

quotas: it regulated the number of black marines it took from recruit depots as 

replacements, as insurance against a "disproportionate" number of Negroes in 

combat units. Under the screening procedures of Marine headquarters and unit 

commanders, black enlisted men were excluded from assignment to reserve officer training units, recruiting stations, the State Department for duty at embassies and legations, and certain special duties of the Department of Defense 

and the Navy Department. 20 

For the service to reserve the right to restrict the assignment of Negroes when 

it was of "overriding interest to the Marine Corps" was perhaps understandable, but it was also susceptible to considerable misinterpretation if not outright 

abuse. The Personnel Department was "constantly" receiving requests from 

commanders that no black noncoms be assigned to their units. While some of 

these requests seemed reasonable, the chief of the division's Detail Branch 

noted, others were not. Commanders of naval prison retraining centers did not 

want black noncommissioned officers assigned because, they claimed, Negroes 

caused unrest among the prisoners. The Marine Barracks in Washington, D.C., 

where the commandant lived, did not want black marines because of the 

ceremonial nature of its mission. The Marine Barracks at Dahlgren, Virginia, 

did not want Negroes because conflicts might arise with civilian employees in 

cafeterias and movies. Other commanders questioned the desirability of assigning black marines to the Naval Academy, to inspector-instructor billets in the 

clerical and supply fields, and to billets for staff chauffeurs. The Detail Branch 

wanted a specific directive that listed commands to which black marines should 

not be assigned . 

21 

Restrictions on the assignment of black marines were never codified, but the 

justification for them changed. In place of the ' 'overriding interest to the 

Marine Corps" clause, the corps began to speak of restrictions "solely for the 

welfare of the individual Marine." In 19 55 the Director of Personnel, Maj . Gen. 

Robert 0 . Bare, pointed to the unusually severe hardships imposed on Negroes 

in some communities where the attitude toward black marines sometimes interfered with their performance of duty. Since civilian pressures could not be 

recognized officially, Bare reasoned, they had to be dealt with informally on a 

19Memo. Head of Derail Be, Pees Dept, for Dir of Pees, 10 Jun 52. sub: Policy Regarding Negro Marines, 

MC files. This method of assigning staff noncommissioned officers still prevailed in 1976. 20 Ibid ., 4 Aug 52. 21 Ibid ., 10 Jun 52. 
468 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

person-to-person basis. 22 By this statement he meant the Marine Corps would 

informally exclude Negroes from certain assignments. Of course no one explained how barring Negroes from assignment to recruitment, inspectorinstructor, embassy, or even chauffeur duty worked for "the welfare of the individual Marine." Such an explanation was just what Congressman Powell was 

demanding in January 1958 when he asked why black marines were excluded 

from assignments to the American Embassy in Paris. 23 

Community attitudes toward Negroes in uniform had become a serious matter in all the services by the late 1950's, and concern for the welfare of black 

marines was repeatedly voiced by Marine commanders in areas as far-flung as 

Nevada, Florida, and southern California. 24 But even here there was reason to 

question the motives of some local commanders, for during a lengthy discussion 

in the Personnel Department some officials asserted that the available evidence 

indicated no justification for restricting assignments. Anxiety over assignments 

anywhere in the United States was unfounded, they claimed, and offered in 

support statistics demonstrating the existence of a substantial black community 

in all the duty areas from which Negroes were unofficially excluded. The Assignment and Classification Branch also pointed out that the corps had experienced 

no problems in the case of the thirteen black marines then assigned to inspectorinstructor duty, including one in Mobile, Alabama. The branch went on to 

discuss the possibility of assigning black marines to recruiting duty. Since 

recruiters were assigned to areas where they understood local attitudes and 

customs, some officials reasoned, Negroes should be used to promote the corps 

among potential black enlistees whose feelings and attitudes were not likely to 

be understood by white recruiters. 

These matters were never considered officially by the Marine Corps staff, and 

as of 1960 the Inspector General was still keeping a list of stations to which 

Negroes would not be assigned. But the picture quickly changed in the next 

year, and by June 1962 all restrictions on the assignment of black marines had 

been dropped with the exception of several installations in the United States 

where off-base housing was unavailable and some posts overseas where the use 

of black marines was limited because of the attitudes of foreign governments. ~ 

The perennial problem of an all-black Steward's Branch persisted into the 

1960's. Stewards served a necessary though unglamorous function in the Marine 

22Ltr, Maj Gcn R. 0. Bare to CO, 1st Mar Div, 14 Jul 55; Ltr, Dir of Pcrs to CG, 1st Mar Div (ca. 10 Dec 

56). The quotation is from Ltr, CO, Marine Barracks, NAD. Hawthorne. Nev., to Dir of Pers, 15 Dec 62. 23Lrr, Powell to SccDcf, 23 Jan 58. Sec also unsigned Draft Ltr for the commandant's signature to Powell, 

12 Feb 58. 24See Lm, A. W. Genrlcman, Hq MC Cold Weather Tng Cen, Bridgeport, Calif., to Col Hardey. 12 Nov 

57: CO, MB. NAS. Jacksonville, Fla., co Personnel Dept, 14 Dec 62; CO, MB, NAD. Hawthorne, Nev., to 

same.15Dcc62. 

~Draft Memo, Head of Assignment and Classification Br for Dir, Pcrs (ca. 1961). sub: Restricted 

Assignments; Memo, IG for Dir. Pers, 31 Aug 6~; Ltr, Lt Col A. W. Snell to Col R. S. Johnson, CO, MB, Port 

Lyautey, 28 Jun 62. See also Memo, Maj E. W. Snelling, MB, NAD. Charleston, S.C., for Maj Duncan, 27 

Nov 62; and the following Ltrs: Col S. L. Stephan, CO. MB, Norfolk Nav Shipyard, to Dir, Pers, 7 Dec 62; K. 

A. Jorgensen, CO, MB, Nav Base, Charleston, S.C., to Duncan, 7 Dec 62; Col R. J. Picardi, CO. MB, Lake 

Mead Base, to Duncan, 30 Nov 62. 
INTEGRATION OF THE MARINE CORPS 469 

Corps, and education standards for such 

duty were considerably lower than those 

for the rest of the service. Everyone 

understood this, and beyond the stigma 

many young people fe lt was attached to 

such duties, many Negroes particularly 

resented the fact that while the branch 

was officially open to all, somehow 

none of the less gifted whites ever 

joined. Stewards were acquired either 

by recruiting new marines with 

stewards-duty-only contracts or by accepting volunteers from the general service. The evidence suggests that there 

was truth in the commonly held 

assumption among stewards that when 

a need for more stewards arose, 

''volunteers'' were secured by tampering with the classification test scores of 

men in the general service. TRAINING EXERCISES on lwo jima 26 , 

March 1954. The commandant seemed less concerned with methods than results when stewards were needed. In June 1950 he 

had reaffirmed the policy of allowing stewards to reenlist for general duty, but 

when he learned that some stewards had made the jump to general duty without 

being qualified, he announced that men who had signed contracts for stewards 

duty only were not acceptable for general duty unless they scored at least in the 

31st percentile of the qualifying tests. To make the change to general duty even 

less attractive, he ruled that if a steward reenlisted for general duty he would 

have to revert to the rank of private, first class. 27 Such measures did nothing to 

improve the morale of black stewards, many of whom, according to civil rights 

critics, felt confined forever to performing menial tasks, nor did it prevent constant shortages in the Steward 's Branch and problems arising from the lack of 

men with training in modern mess management. 

The corps tned to attack these problems in the mid-1950's. At the behest of 

the Secretary of the Navy it eliminated the stewards-duty-only contract in 1954; 

henceforth all marines were enlisted for general duty, and only after recruit 

training could volunteers sign up for stewards duty. Acceptance of men scoring 

below ninety in the classification tests would be limited to 40 percent of those 

volunteering each month for stewards duty. 28 The corps also instituted special 

training in modern mess management for stewards. In 1953 the Quartermaster 

General had created an inspection and demonstration team composed of senior 

26

Shaw and Donnelly, 8/ac/u 1i1 the Mari11e Corps, pp. 64-65. 27

Spccd Ltr, CMC to Distribution List, 22 Jun 50; Routing Sheet, Pcrs Dept, 21 Jun 50, sub: Enlisrmenr of 

Stewards. 

2

8ttrs, CMC tO DiStribution List. 16 Ap r 55 and 18 Nov 55. 
470 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

MARINES FROM CAMP LEJEUNE ON THE US$ VALLEY FORGE for training exercises, 

1958. 

stewards to instruct members of the branch in the latest techniques of cooking 

and baking, supervision, and management. 29 In August 1954 the commandant 

established an advanced twelve-week course for stewards based on the Navy's 

successful system. 

These measures, however, did nothing to cure the chronic shortage of men 

and the attendant problems of increased work load and low morale that continued to plague the Steward's Branch throughout the 1950's. Consequently, 

the corps still found it difficult to attract enough black volunteers to the branch. 

In 1959, for example, the branch was still 8 percent short of its 826-man goaP0 

The obvious solution, to use white volunteers for messman duty, would be a 

radical departure from tradition. True, before World War II white marines had 

been used in the Marine Corps for duties now performed by black stewards, but 

they had never been members of a branch organized exclusively for that purpose. ln 1956 tradition was broken when white volunteers were quietly signed 

up for the branch. By March 1961 the branch had eighty white men, 10 percent 

of its total. Reviewing the situation later that year, the commandant decided to 

increase the number of white stewards by setting a racial quota on steward 

2

"Mcmo. Head, Enlisted Moniroring Unit, Derail Br, for Lt Col Gordon T. West, 29 Oct 54, Pcrs A. See 

also Shaw and Donnelly. Blacks in the Marine CorfJS, pp. 65-66. 

30Mcmo. ). ). Holicky, Derail Br, for Dir of Pcrs. USMC, 3 i\ug 59. sub: Inspection o'f Occupational Field 

36 (Stewards), Pcrs I . MC files. 
INTEGRATION OF THE MARINE CORPS 471 

COLONEL PETERSEN (1968 photograph). 

assignment. Henceforth, he ordered, 

half the volunteers accepted for stewards duty would be white.H 

The new policy made an immediate 

difference. In less than two months the 

Steward's Branch was 20 percent white. 

In marked contrast to the claims of 

Navy recruiters, the marines reported 

no difficulty in attracting white volunteers for messman duties. Curiously, 

the volunteers came mostly from the 

southeastern states. As the racial composition of the S reward's Branch 

changed, the morale of its black 

members seemed to improve. As one 

senior black warrant officer later explained, simply opening stewards duty 

to whites made such duty acceptable to 

many Negroes who had been prone to 

ask "if it [stewards duty] was so good, 

why don't you have some of the whites 

in it. " 32 When transfer to general service assignments became easy to obtain in 

the 1960's, the Marine Corps found that only a small percentage of the black 

stewards now wished to make the change. 

There were still inequities in the status of black marines, especially the near 

absence of black officers (two on active duty in 1950, nineteen in January 1955) 

and the relatively slow rate of promotion among black marines in general. The 

corps had always justified its figures on the grounds that competition in so small 

a service was extremely fierce, and, as the commandant explained to Walter 

White in 1951, a man had to be good to compete and outstanding to be promoted. He cited the 1951 selection figures for officer training: out of 2,025 

highly qualfied men applying, only half were selected and only half of those 

were commissioned. 33 Promotion to senior billets for noncommissioned officers 

was also highly competitive, with time in service an important factor. It was 

unlikely in such circumstances that many black marines would be commissioned 

from the ranks or a higher percentage of black noncommissioned officers would 

be promoted to the most senior positions during the 1950's. 34 The Marine Corps 

had begun commissioning Negroes so recently that the development of a 

representative group of black officers in a system of open competition was of 

necessity a slow and arduous task. The task was further complicated because 

}

1

M em~. Asst Chief for Plans, SuPers (Rear Adm B. J. Semmes, Jr.), for Chief of NavPcrs, 22 Jun 61. 32USMC Oral History Interview, CWO James E. Johnson, 27 Mar 73. 

33Ltr, CMC to Walter White, 2 Jul 51, A0- 1, MC files. Sec also Memo, Div of Plans and Policies (T. ). 

Colle;{.) for A sst Dir of Public Info, 4 Jun ~I, sub: Article in Pittsburgh Co11rier of 26 May 51. 

3 Memo, ~i<ec Off, ACofS. G-1, for William L. Taylor, Asst Staff Dir, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 

27 Fc:b 63, sub: Personnel Information Requested, AO-tC, MC files. 
472 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

most of the nineteen black officers on 

active duty in 1955 were reservists serving out tours begun in the Korean War. 

Only a few of them had made the successful switch from reserve co regular 

service. The first two were 2d Lt. Frank 

E. Petersen, Jr., the first black Marine 

pilot, and 2d Lt. Kenneth H. Berthoud, 

Jr., who first served as a tank officer in 

the 3d Marine Division. Both men 

would advance to high rank in the 

corps. Petersen becoming the first black 

marine general. 

As for the noncommissioned officers, there were a number of senior 

enlisted black marines in the 1950's, 

many of them holdovers from the 

World War II era, and Negroes were being promoted to the ranks of corporal 

and sergeant in appreciable numbers. SERGEANT MAJOR HUFF 

But the tenfold increase in the number of black marines during the Korean War 

caused the ratio of senior black noncommissioned officers to black marines to 

drop. Here again promotion to higher rank was slow. The first black marine to 

make the climb to the top in the integrated corps was Edgar R. Huff. A gunnery 

sergeant in an integrated infantry battalion in Korea, Huff later became battalion sergeant major in the 8th Marines and eventually senior sergeant major 

in the Marine Corps.;s 

By 1962 there were 13,351 black enlisted men, 7.59 percent of the corps' 

strength, and 34 black officers (7 captains, 25 lieutenants, and 2 warrant officers) serving in integrated units in all military occupations. These statistics illustrate the racial progress that occurred in the Marine Corps during the 1950's, 

a change that was both orderly and permanent, and, despite the complicated 

forces at work, in essence a gift to the naval establishment from the Korean 

battlefield. 

11 Shaw and,Donnelly, 8/arks in tbt Mnrillf CorpJ, pp. 62-64. 
CHAPTER 19 

A New Era Begins 

On 30 October 1954 the Secretary of Defense announced that the last 

racially segregated unit in the armed forces of the United States had been 

abolished! Considering the department's very conservative definition of a 

segregated unit-one at least 50 percent black-the announcement celebrated a 

momentous change in policy. In the little more than six years since President 

Truman's order, all black servicemen, some quarter of a million in 1954, had 

been intermingled with whites in the nation's military units throughout the 

world. For the services the turbulent era of integration had begun. 

The new era's turbulence was caused in part by the decade-long debate that 

immediately ensued over the scope of President Truman's guarantee of equal 

treatment and opportunity for servicemen. On one side were ranged most service officials, who argued chat integration, now a source of pride to the services 

and satisfaction to the civil rights movement, had ceased to be a public issue. 

Abolishing segregated units, they claimed, fulfilled the essential elements of 

the executive order, leaving the armed forces only rare vestiges of discrimination 

to correct. Others, at first principally the civil rights bloc in Congress and civil 

rights organizations, but later black servicemen themselves, contended that the 

Truman order committed the Department of Defense to far more than integration of military units. They believed that off-base discrimination, so much more 

apparent with the improvement of on-base conditions, seriously affected morale 

and efficiency. They wanted the department co challenge local laws and customs 

when they discriminated against black servicemen. 

This interpretation made little headway in the Department of Defense during the first decade of integration. Both the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations made commitments to the principle of equal treatment within the 

services, and both admitted the connection between military efficiency and 

discrimination, but both presumed, at least until 1963, severe limitations on 

their power to change local laws and customs. For their part, the services constantly referred to the same limitations, arguing that their writ in regard to racial 

reform ran only to the gates of the military reservation. 

Yet while there was no substantive change in the services' view of their racial 

responsibilities, the Department of Defense was able to make significant racial 

reforms between 1954 and 1962. More than expressing the will of the Chief Executive, these changes reflected the fact that military society was influenced by 

some of the same forces that were operating on the larger American society. 

Possessed of a discipline that enabled it to reform rapidly, military society still 

1

Ncw York Timn, October 31. 1954; ibid. , Editorial, November I, 1954. 
474 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

shared the prejudices as well as the reform impulses of the body politic. Racial 

changes in the services during the first decade of integration were primarily 

parochial responses to special internal needs; nevertheless, they took place at a 

time when civil rights demands were stirring the whole country. Their effectiveness must be measured against the expectations such demands were kindling 

in the black community. 

The Civtf Rights Revolution 

The post-World War II civil rights movement was unique in the nation's 

history. Contrasting this era of black awakening with the post-Civil War campaign for black civil rights, historian C. Vann Woodward found the twentieth 

centut·y phenomenon "more profound and impressive ... deeper, surer, Jess 

contrived, more spontaneous. " 2 Again in contrast to the original, the so-called 

second reconstruction period found black Americans uniting in a demand for 

social justice so long withheld. In 1953. the year before the Supreme Court decision to desegregate the schools, Clarence Mitchell of the NAACP gave voice to 

the revolutionary rise in black expectations: 

Twenty years ago the Negro was satisfied if he could have even a half-decent school ro go 

to (and took it for granted that it would be a segregated school) or if he could go to the 

hotel in town or the restaurant maybe once a year for some special interracial dinner and 

meeting. Twenty years ago much of the segregation pattern was taken for granted by the 

Negro. Now it is different.3 

The difference was understandable. The rapid urbanization of many black 

Americans, coupled with their experience in World War II, especially in the 

armed forces and in defense industries, had enhanced their economic and 

political power and raised their educational opportunities. And what was true 

for the war generation was even truer for its children. Possessed of a new selfrespect, young Negroes began to demonstrate confidence in the future and a 

determination to reject the humiliation of second-class citizenship. Out of this 

attitude grew a widespread demand among the young for full equality, and 

when this demand met with opposition, massive participation in civil rights 

demonstrations became both practical and inevitable. Again historian Woodward • s observations are pertinent: 

More than a black revolt against whites, it was in part a generational rebellion, an uprising of youth against the older generation, against the parental ''uncle Toms'' and their 

inhibitions. It even took the N.A.A.C.P. and CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) by 

2

C. Vann Woodward, Strange Career of jim Crow, p. 170. This accoum of the civil righcs movement 

largely follows Woodward's famous study, butt he following works have also been consulted: Benjamin Muse, 

Tm Years of Prelude: The Story of lntegratio11 Si11t:e the Supreme Court's 19.54 Det:ision (New York: Viking 

Press. 1964): Constance M. Green, The Set:ret C1iy: A History of Rat:e Relatiom in the Nation's Cap1ial 

(Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1967): Anthony Lewis and the New York Ti11tes, Portrait of a Det:ade 

(New York: New York Times, 1964): Franklin. From Slavery lo Freedor11: Freedom to the Free: A Report to 

lhe President by the U.S. Commim(m 011 Civil RightJ (Washington: Govcrnmcm Printing Office, 1963): 

Report of the Natior~al Advisory Commission 0 11 Civil Disorders; lmcrv. Nichols with Clarence Mitchell. 1953, in Nichols Collection, CMH. 

llntcrv, Nichols wirh Mitchell. 
A NEW ERA BEGINS 

surprise. Negroes were in charge of their 

own movement, and youth was in the 

vanguard.4 

To a remarkable extent, this youthful 

vanguard was strongly religious and 

nonviolent. The influence of the church 

on the militant phase of the civil rights 

movement is one of the movement's 

salient characteristics. 

This black awakening paralleled a 

growing realization among an increasing num her of white Americans that 

the demands of the civil rights leaders 

were just and that the government 

should act. World War II had made 

many thoughtful Americans aware of 

the contradiction inherent in fighting 

fa$cism with segregated troops. In the 

postwlu years. the cold war rivalry for CLARENCE MITCHELL 

the friendship and allegiance of the 

475 

world's colored peoples, who were creating a multitude of new states, added a 

pragmatic reason for ensuring equal treatment and opportunity for black 

Americans. A further inducement, and a particularly forceful one, was the size 

of the northern black vote, which had become the key to victory in several electorally important states and had made the civil rights cause a practical political 

necessity for both major parties. 

The U.S. Supreme Court was the real pacesetter. Significantly broadening 

its interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court reversed a centuryold trend and called for federal intervention to protect the civil rights of the 

black minority in transportation, housing, voting, and the administration of 

justice. In the Morgan v. Virginia decision of 1946,5 for example, the Court 

launched an attack on segregation in interstate travel. In another series of cases it 

proclaimed the right of Negroes to be tried only in those courts where Negroes 

could serve on juries and outlawed the all-white primary system, which in some 

one-party states had effectively barred Negroes from the elective process. The 

latter decision partly explains the rise in the number of qualified black voters in 

twelve southern states from 645,000 in 1947 to some 1.2 million by 1952. 

However. many difficulties remained in the way of full enfranchisement. The 

poll tax, literacy tests, and outright intimidation frustrated the registration of 

Negroes in many areas, and in some rural counties black voter registration actually declined in the early 1960's. But the Court's intervention was crucial 

because its decisions established the precedent for federal action that would 

culminate in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

4Woodward, S1ra11ge Career of jim Crow, p . 170 . 

)328 u.s. 373 (1946). 
476 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

These judicial initiatives whittled away at segregation's hold on the Constitution, but it was the Supreme Court's rulings in the field of public education 

that dealt segregation a mortal blow. Its unanimous decision in the case of 

Oliver Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, on 17 May 19546 

not only undermined segregation in the nation's schools, but by an irresistible 

extension of the logic employed in the case also committed the nation at its 

highest levels to the principle of racial equality. The Court's conclusion that 

"separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" exposed segregation in 

all public areas to rem;wed judicial scrutiny. It was, as Professor Woodward 

described it, the most far-reaching Court decision in a century. and it marked 

the beginning of the end of Jim Crow' s reign in America. 7 

But it was only the beginning, for the Court's order that the transition to 

racially nondiscriminatory school systems be accomplished "with all deliberate 

speed' '

8 encountered massive resistance in many places. Despite ceaseless litigation and further affirmations by the Court, and despite enforcement by federal 

troops in the celebrated cases of Little Rock, Arkansas, and Oxford, Mississippi, 

and by federal marshals in New Orleans, Louisiana,9 elimination of segregated 

public schools was painfully slow. As late as 1962, for example, only 7.6 percent 

of the more than three million Negroes of school age in the southern and border 

states attended integrated schools. 

The executive branch also took up the cause of civil rights, albeit in a more 

limited way than the courtS. The Eisenhower administration, for instance, continued President Truman's efforcs to achieve equal treatment and opportunity 

for black servicemen. Just before the Brown decision the administration quickly 

desegregated most dependent schools on military bases. It also desegregated the 

school system of Washington, D.C., and, with a powerful push from the 

Supreme Court in the case of the District of Columbia v. john R. Thompson Co . 

in 1953, 10 abolished segregation in places of public accommodation in the nation's capital. Eisenhower also continued Truman's fight against discrimination 

in federal employment, including jobs covered by government contracts, by 

establishing watchdog committees on government employment policy and 

government contracts. 

Independent federal agencies also began to attack racial discrimination. The 

Interstate Commerce Commission, with strong assistance from the courts, made 

a series of rulings that by 1961 had outlawed segregation in much interstate 

travel. The Federal Housing Authority, following the Supreme Court's abrogation of the state's power to enforce restrictive covenants in the sale of housing, 

began in the early 1950's to push toward a federal open-occupany policy in 

6347 U.S. 483 (19 ~4): see also 349 U.S. 294 (19~~). 7Woodward . Strange Career of jim Cro111, p. 147. 8349 u.s. 294 (19 ~~). 

9for an outline of the federal and National Guard intervention in these areas, sec Robert W. Coakley, Paul 

). Schcips, Vincent H. Demma, and M. Warner Stark, "Usc of Troops in Civil Disturbances Since World War 

II" (194~ to 96 ~ with two supplements through 1967). Center of Milimy History Study 7~. 10346 u.s. 100 (19~3). 
A NEW ERA BEGINS 477 

public housing and all housing with federally guaranteed loans. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, an investigatory agency appointed by the President 

under the Civil Rights Act of 195 7, examined complaints of voting discrimination and denials of equal protection under the law. Both Eisenhower and Kennedy dispatched federal officials to investigate and prosecute violations of voting 

rights in several states. 

But civil rights progress was still painfully slow in the 1950's. The fight for 

civil rights in that decade graphically demonstrated a political fact of life: any 

profound change in the nation's social system requires the concerted efforts of 

all three branches of the national government. In this case the Supreme Court 

had done its part, repeatedly attacking segregation in many spheres of national 

life. The executive branch, on the other hand, did not press the Court's decisions as thoroughly as some had hoped, although Eisenhower certainly did so 

forcibly and spectacularly with federal troops at Little Rock in 195 7. The 

dispatch of paratroopers to Little Rock, 11 a memorable example of federal intervention and one popularly associated with civil rights, had, in fact, little to do 

with civil rights, but was rather a vivid example of the exercise of executive 

powers in the face of a threat to federal judicial authority. Where the Brown 

decision was concerned, Eisenhower's view of judicial powers was narrow and his 

leadership antithetical to the Court's call for "all deliberate speed." He even 

withheld his support in school desegregation cases. Eisenhower was quite frank 

about the limitations he perceived in his power and, by inference, his duty to effect civil rights reforms. Such reforms, he believed, were a matter of the heart 

and, as he explained to Congressman Powell in 1953, could not be achieved by 

means of laws or directives or the action of any one person, II no matter with how 

much authority and forthrightness he acts. '

112 

Despite the President's reluctance to lead in civil rights matters, major 

blame for the lack of substantial progress must be assigned to the third branch 

of government. The 195 7 and 1960 civil rights laws, pallid harbingers of later 

powerful legislation in this field, demonstrated Congress's lukewarm commitment to civil rights reform that severely limited federal action. The reluctance of 

Congress to enact the ·reforms augured in the Brown decision convinced many 

Negroes that they would have to take further measures to gain their full constitutional rights. They had seen presidents and federal judges embrace principles long argued by civil rights organizations, but to little avail. Seven years 

after the Brown decision, Negroes were still disfranchised in large areas of the 

11For an authoritative account of Liule Rock, see Roben W. Coakley's ''Operation Arkansas," Center of 

Military History Srody 158M. 1967. Sec also Paul J. Schcips, "Enforcement of the Federal Judicial Process by 

Federal Marshals," in Bayonets in the Streets; The Use of Troops in Civil Disturbances, cd. Robin Higham 

(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1969). pp. 39-42. 12Ltr, Eisenhower tO Powell, 6 Jun 53. G 124-A-1, Eisenhower Library. For a later and more comprehcn· 

sivc expression of these sentiments, sec ·'Extemporaneous Remarks by the Prcsidcm at the National Conference on Civil Rights. 9 June 1959," Pt~blic Papers oft he Presidmts: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1959, pp, 

447-50. 
478 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

south, still endured segregated public transportation and places of public accommodation, and still encountered discrimination in employment and housing throughout the nation. Nor had favorable court decisions and federal attempts at enforcement reversed the ominous trend in black unemployment 

rates, which had been rising for a decade. Above all, court decisions could not 

spare Negroes the sense of humiliation that segregation produced. Segregation 

implied racial inferiority, a "constant corroding experience," as Clarence Mitchell once called it. It was segregation's seeming imperviousness to governmental action in the 1950's that caused the new generation of civil rights leaders 

to develop new civil rights techniques. 

Their new methods forced the older leaders, temporarily at least, into 

eclipse. No longer could they convince their juniors of the efficacy of legal action, and the 1950's ended with the younger generation taking to the streets in 

the first spontaneous battles of their civil rights revolution. Under the direction 

of the Southern Christian Leadership Council and its charismatic founder, Martin Luther King. Jr., the strategy of massive civil disobedience, broached in 1948 

by A. Philip Randolph. became a reality. Other organizations quickly joined the 

battle, including the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 

also organized by Dr. King but soon destined to break away into more radical 

paths, and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), an older organization, now 

expanded and under its new director, James Farmer, rededicated to activism. 

Rosa Parks's refusal to move to the rear of the Montgomery bus in 1955 and 

the ensuing successful black boycott that ended the city's segregated transportation pointed the way to a wave of nonviolent direct action that swept the country 

in the 1960's. Thousands of young Americans, most notably in the student-led 

sit-ins enveloping the south in 196013 and the scores of freedom riders bringing 

chaos to the transportation system in 1961, carried the civil rights struggle into 

all corners of the south. "We will wear you down by our capacity to suffer," Dr. 

King warned the nation's majority, and suffer Negroes did in the brutal 

resistance that met their demands. But it was not in vain, for police brutality, 

mob violence, and assassinations set off hundreds of demonstrations throughout 

the country and made civil rights a national political issue. 

The stage was set for a climatic scene, and onto tha~ stage walked the 

familiar figure of A. Philip Randolph, calling for a massive march on 

Washington to demand a redress of black grievances. This time, unlike the 

response to his 1940 appeal, the answer was a promise of support from both 

races. The churches joined in, many 'labor leaders, including Walter Reuther, 

enlisted in the demonstration, and even the President, at first opposed, gave his 

blessing to the national event. A quarter of a million people, about 20 percent 

of them white, marched to the Lincoln Memorial on 28 August 1963 to hear 

l3for an account of rhe first major sit· in demonstrations. which occurred at Greensboro. Norrh Carolina, 

and their influence on civil rights organizations, including the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. 

see Miles Wolff. Lunch at the Five and Te11: The Greemboro Sit-in (New York: Stein and Day. 1970). See also 

Clark. "The Civil Rights Movement," pp. 2~~-60. 
A NEW ERA BEGINS 479 

King appeal to the nation's conscience by reciting his dream of a just society. In 

the words of the Kerner Commission: 

It (the march] was more than a summation of the past years of struggle and aspiration. It 

symbolized certain new directions: a deeper concern for the economic problems of the 

masses, more involvement of white moderates and new demands from the most militant, who implied that only a revolutionary change in American institutions would permit Negroes to achieve the dignity of citizens. l4 

Limitations on Executive Order 9981 

The decade of national civil rights activity that culminated symbolically at 

the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 was closely mirrored in the Department of 

Defense, where the services' definition of equal treatment and opportunity 

underwent a marked evolution. Here, a decade that had begun with the department's placing severe limitations on its defense of black servicemen's civil rights 

ended with the department's joining the vanguard of the civil rights movement. 

In the early 1950's the services were constantly referring to the limitations of 

Executive Order 9981. The Air Force could not intervene in local custom, Assistant Secretary Zuckert told Clarence Mitchell in 1951. Social change in local communities must be evolutionary. he continued, either ignoring or contrasting the 

Air Force's own social experience. 1

) Defending the practice of maintaining large 

training camps in localities discriminating against black soldiers, the Army 

Chief of Staff explained to Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan that while its 

facilities were open to all soldiers regardless of race, the Army had no control 

over nearby civilian communities. There was little its commanders could do 

beyond urging local civic organizations to cooperate. 16 The Deputy Chief of 

Naval Personnel wa~ even more blunt. "The housing situation at Key West is 

not within the control of the Navy," he told the Assistant Secretary of Defense 

in 1953 . Housing was segregated, he admitted, but it was the Federal Housing 

Authority, not the Navy, that controlled the location of off-base housing for 

black sailors. 17 

These excuses for not dealing with off-base discrimination continued 

throughout the decade. As late as 1959, discussing a case of racial discrimination 

near an Army base in Germany, a Defense Department spokesman explained to 

Congressman James Roosevelt that ''since the incident did not take place on one 

of our military bases, we are not in a position to offer direct relief in the situation .... " 18 Even James Evans, the racial counselor, came to use this explanation. "Community mores with respect co race vary," Evans wrote in 1956, and 

14Reporl oft he National Ad~isory Commission on Civil Disorders, p. 109. 

•>Memo, Lt Col Leon Dell, Asst Exec, Off. Asst SecAF. for Col Barnes. Office, SccAF. 9 Jan ~I. SccAF 

files. 

16L1r. CofSA to Ferguson. 7 May 51; sec also Ltr, Under SA Earl D. Johnson 10 Sen. Robert Taft, 19 Jul 51; 

both in CS 291.2 (27 Apr . 17Memo, Dep Chief, NavPcrs for ASD (M&P). 19 Feb ~3. sub: Alleged Race Segregation at U.S. Naval 

Base. Key West, Florida, P 8 (4)/NB Key West. GcnRccs Nav. 18Ltr. ASD (MP&R) Charles C. Finucane to James Roosevelt. 3 Jun 59. ASD (MP&R) files. 
480 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

''such matters are largely beyond direct purview of the Department of 

Defense.'' 19 

Understandably, in view of the difficulties they perceived, the services tried 

to avoid the whole problem. In 1954, for example, a group of forty-eight black 

soldiers traveling on a bus in Columbia, South Carolina, were arrested and fined 

when they protested the attempted arrest of one of them for failing to comply 

with the state's segregated seating law. In the ensuing furor, Secretary of 

Defense Charles E. Wilson explained to President Eisenhower that soldiers were 

subject to community law and his department contemplated no investigation or 

disciplinary action in the case. In view of the civil rights issues involved, Wilson 

continued, 20 the Judge Advocate General of the Army discussed the matter with 

the Justice Department and referred related correspondence to that department 

''for whatever disposition it considered appropriate.'' ''This reply,'' an assistant 

noted on Wilson's file copy of the memo for the President, "gets them off our 

neck, but I don't know about Brownell's [the Attorney General]." 21 

But the services never did get "them" off their neck, and to a large extent 

defense officials could only blame themselves for their troubles. ·Their attitude 

toward extending their standards of equal treatment and opportunity to local 

communities implied a benign neutrality on their part in racial disputes involving servicemen. This attitude was belied by the fact that on numerous and 

sometimes celebrated occasions the services helped reinforce local segregation 

laws. In 1956, for example, Secretary of the Air Force Harold E. Talbott explained that military commanders were expected to foster good relations with 

local authorities and in many areas were obliged to "require" servicemen to 

conform to the dictates of local law ''regardless of their own convictions or personal beliefs. " 22 

This requirement could be rather brutal in practice and placed the services, 

the nation's leading equal opportunity employer, in questionable company. In 

1953 a black pilot stationed at Craig Air Force Base, Alabama, refused to move 

to the rear of a public bus until the military police ordered him to.comply with 

the state law. The Air Force officially reprimanded and eventually discharged 

the pilot. The position of the Air Force was made clear in the reprimand: 

Your acrions in this instance are prejudicial to good order and military discipline and do 

not conform to the standards of conduct expected of a commissioned officer of the 

United States Air Force. As a member of the Armed Forces, you are obliged to abide by 

all municipal and state laws, regardless of your personal feelings or Armed Forces policy 

relative to the issue at hand. Your open violation of the segregation policy established 

19Evans and Lane, " Integration in the Armed Services," p. 83. 20Wilson, former president of General Motors Corporation, became President Eisenhower's first Secretary 

of Defense on 28 January 1953. 21Mcmo, CofS, G-1. for ASA, 6 Jan 54, sub: Mass jailing and Fining of Negro Soldiers in Columbia, 

S.C.; Memo. ASA for ASD (M&P), same date and sub; Memo. SecDef for President, 7 Jan 54 . All in G-1 

291.2 (10 Dec H). 22SecAF statement, l May 56, quoted in Address by James P. Goode, Employment Policy Officer for the 

Air Force, at a meeting called by the President's Committee on Government Employment Policy, 24 May 56, 

AF File 202-56, Fair Employment Program. 
A NEW ERA BEGINS 481 

by this Railroad Company and the State of Alabama is inpic~t~ve ~f extremely po~r 

judgment on your part and reflects unfavorably on your qualtftcauons as a commissioned officer. 13 

As the young pilot's commanding officer put it, the lieutenant had refused to 

accept the fact that military personnel must use tact and diplomacy to avoid 

discrediting the United States Air Force. 

24 

Tact and diplomacy were also the keynote when the services helped enforce 

the local segregation practices of the nation's allies. This became increasingly 

true even in Europe in the 1950's, although never with as much publicity as the 

events connected with the carrier Midway's visit to Capetown, South Africa, in 

1955. Its captain, on the advice of the U.S. consul, agreed to conform with a 

local law that segregated sailors when they were ashore. This agreement became 

public knowledge while the ship was en route, but despite a rash of protests and 

congressional demands that the visit be canceled, the Midway arrived at 

Capetown. Later a White House spokesman tried to put a good face on the incident: 

We believe that a far greater blow was struck for the cause of equal justice when 23,000 

South Africans came aboard the Midway on a non-segregated basis-when the whole 

community saw American democracy in action-than could have been made if we had 

decided to by-pass Capetown. Certainly no friends for our cause would have been 

gained in that way!2) 

The black serviceman lacked the civilian's option to escape community 

discrimination. For example, one black soldier requested transfer because of 

discrimination he was forced to endure in the vicinity of Camp Hanford, 

Washington. His request was denied, and in commenting on the case the 

Army's G-1 gave a typical service excuse when he said that the Army could not 

practically arrange for the mass reassignment of black soldiers or the restriction 

of their assignments to certain geographical areas to avoid discrimination. 26 The 

Air Force added a further tw.ist. Replying to a similar request, a spokesman 

wrote that limiting the number of bases to which black airmen could be 

assigned would be "contrary to the policy of equality of treatment. " 27 There 

was, however, one exception to the refusal to alter assignments for racial reasons. 

Both the Air Force and the Army had an established and frequently reiterated 

2

3Memo, CG, 3380th Tactical Training Wing, Keesler AFB, Miss., for (name withheld), Jul 53. sub: Ad· 

minimadve Reprimand; NAACP News Rei ease. 23 Nov 53; copies of both in SecAF files. 24Memo, Cmdr, 3615ch Pilot Tng Wing, Craig AFB, Ala., for Cmdr, Flying Dir, Air Tng Cmd, Waco, 

Tex., 4 Aug 53, sub: Disciplinary Punisliment, copy in SecAF files. 2

)Ltr. Maxwell M. Rabb, President's Assistant for Minority Affairs. to Dr. W. Montague Cobb, as 

reproduced in Cobb, "The: Strait Gate," journal of the National Medical Auociation 47 (September 

1955):349. 26Memo, ACofS, G-1. for TIG, 30 Nov 53. sub: Complaint of Cpllsrael Joshua. G-1 291.2 (3 Nov 53). 

For an earlier expression of the same sentiments, see ACofS, G- 1, Summary Sheet for CofS, 27 Nov 50, sub: 

Request for Policy Determination, G-1 291.2 (9 Nov 50). Camp Hanford was originally·the Hanford Engineer 

Works, which played a part in the MANH/\ITAN project that produced the atom bomb. 27Memo, Maj Gen Joe Kelly, Dir, Legis Liaison, USAF, for Lc Col William G. Draper, AF Aide: to Presi· 

dent, I Sc:p 54, with attachments, sub: Segregation in Gulfport, Mississippi; Memo, Col Draper for Maxwell 

Rabb, 6 Oct 54; both in GF 124-A-1, Eisenhower Library. 
482 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

policy of not assigning troops involved in interracial marriages to states where 

such unions were illegal . 

28 

At times the services' respect for local laws and ordinances forced them to retain some aspects of the segregation policies so recently abolished. Answering a 

complaint made by Congressman Powell in 1956, for example, The Adjutant 

General of the Army explained that off-duty entertainment did not fall within 

the scope of the Truman order. Since most dances were sponsored by outside 

groups, they had to take place "under conditions cited by them." To insist on 

integration in this instance, The Adjutant General argued, would mean 

cancellation of these dances to the detriment of the soldiers' morale. For that 

reason, segregated dances would continue on post. 29 

This response illustrates the services' approach to equal opportunity and 

treatment during the Eisenhower administration. The President showed a strong 

reluctance to interfere with local laws and customs, a reluctance that seemed to 

flow out of a pronounced constitutional scruple against federal intervention in 

defiance of local racial laws. The practical consequence of this scruple was readily 

apparent in the armed forces throughout his adminiStration. In 195 5, for example, a black veteran called the President's attention to the plight of black 

soldiers, part of an integrated group, who were denied service in an Alabama 

airport and left unfed throughout their long journey. Answering for the President, Maxwell M. Rabb, Secretary to the Cabinet, reaffirmed Eisenhower's 

dedication to equal opportunity but added that it was not in the scope of the 

President's authority "to intervene in matters which are of local or state-wide 

concern and within the jurisdiction of local legislation and determination. " 30 

Again to a black soldier complaining of being denied service near Fore Bragg, 

North Carolina, a White Bouse assistant, himself a Negro, replied that "outside of an Army post, there is little that the Federal Government can do, except 

to appeal to the decency of the citizens to treat men in uniform with courtesy 

and respect.'' He then suggested a course of action for black soldiers: 

The President's heart bleeds when any Americans are viccims of injustice, and he is 

doing everything he possibly can to rectify this situation in our country. 

You can hold up his hand by carrying on, despite the unpleasant things that are 

happening to you at this moment, realizing that, on this end, we will work all the 

harder to make your sacrifices worrhwhileY 

But as the record suggests, this promise to rectify the situation was never 

meant to extend beyond the gates of the military reservation. Thus, the 

countless incidents of blatant discrimination encountered by black GI's would 

continue largely unchallenged into the 1960's, masking the progress made by 

the Eisenhower administration in ordering the sometimes reluctant services to 

28Carccr Management Div, TAGO. "Policy Paper," Jul 54, AGAM 291.2 For other pronouncements of 

this policy, sec ibid.; OF. ACS/G-1 to TAG, 4 Jan 54, sub: Assignment ol Personnel; and in G-1 291.2 the 

following: Memo, Ch1et, Class11Jcauon and !itandards Br, G-1. lor Planmng OltJcc, G-1, 28 Feb 50. sub: ssi~nmem ol Personnel; 01', G-1 to 'I AG. 8 Mar 50. same sub. 

9Ltr. TAG to Powell. 9 Aug 56. GF 124-A-1. Eisenhower Library. 30Ltrs. C. B. Nichols to President, 28 Mar 55. and Rabb to Nichols. 20 Apr 55; both in G-124-1, 

Eisenhower Library. 31 Ltr. E. frcdcnc Morrow to Pfc John Washington. 9 Apr 57. in reply to Ltr, Washington to President, 5 

Mar 57; both in G-124-A- 1. Eisenhower Library. 
A NEW ERA BEGINS 483 

adopt reforms. This presidential resolution was particularly obvious in the integration of civilian facilities at Navy shipyards and installations and in schools 

for dependent children on military posts. 

Integration of Navy Shipyards 

The Navy employed many thousands of civilians, including a large number 

of Negroes, at some forty-three installations from Virginia to Texas. At the Norfolk shipyard, for example, approximately 35 percent of the 15,000 employees 

were black. To the extent dictated by local laws and customs, black employees 

were segregated and otherwise discriminated against. The degree of segregation 

depended upon location, and, according to a 1953 newspaper survey, ranged 

''from minor in most instances to substantial in a few cases.'' 32 

In January 1952 the Chief of the Office of Industrial Relations, Rear Adm. 

W. MeL. Hague, all but absolved Navy installations from the provisions of Executive Order 9980. 33 He announced that segregation would continue if "the 

station is subject to local laws of the community in which located, and the laws 

of the community require segregated facilities," or if segregation were "the 

norm of the community and conversion to common facilities would, in the 

judgment of the commanding officer, result in definite impediment to productive effort." Known officially as "OIR Notice CP75," Hague's statement left 

little doubt that segregation would remain the norm in most instances. It 

specified that a change to int,egrated facilities would be allowed only after the 

commander had decided that it could be accomplished without "inordinate interference with the Station's ability to carry out its mission." If other facilities 

stood nearby, the change would be allowed only after he had coordinated with 

the naval district commander. 34 Shortly thereafter the Acting Secretary of the 

Navy expressed his agreement with Hague's statement, 35 thus elevating it to an 

official expression of Navy policy. 

Official protestations to the contrary, the Navy was again segregating people 

by race. Evans, in the Department of Defense, charged that this was in fact the 

"insidious intent" of Hague's notice. He pointed out to Assistant Secretary of 

Defense Rosenberg that signs and notices of segregation were reappearing over 

drinking fountains and toilets at naval installations which had abandoned such 

practices, that men in uniform were now subjected to segregation at such 

facilities, and that the local press was making the unrefuted claim that local law 

32UPI News Release, 20 Aug 53. copy in CMH files. 

HExccutive Order 9980, announcing regulations governing fair employment practices within the federal 

government, was signed by President Truman on 26 July 1948, the same day and as a companion to his order 

on c~ual treatment and opportunity in the services. 

3 OIR Notice CP75, Chief, Office of Industrial Relations; tO Chiefs. Bureaus, ct al. , 23 Jan 52, sub: 

Segregation of Facilities for Civil Service Employees; Navy Department Policy. 

35Ltr, Actg SecNav Francis Whitehair tO Jerry 0. Gilliam, Norfolk Branch, NAACP. 19 Mar 52. P 8(4). 

SecNav files, GenRecsNav. 
484 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

CONGRESSMAN POWELL 

was being reestablished on federal properties.~6 Somewhat late to the battle, 

Dennis D. Nelson seemingly a permanent fixture in the Pentagon, spoke out 

against his department's policy, but 

from a different angle. He warned the 

Secretary of the Navy through his aide 

that Notice 75 was embarrassing not 

only for the Navy but for the White 

House as well. 7 

Nelson was right of course. The 

notice quickly won the attention of civil 

rights leaders. Walter White condemned the policy, but his protest, 

along with the sharp complaints of the 

NAACP's Clarence Mitchell and Jerry 

Gilliam and the arguments of the Urban League's Lester Granger, failed to 

move Secretary of the Navy Dan A. 

KimbalP8 The secretary insisted that 

integrating these installations might jeopardize the fulfillment of the Navy's 

mission, dependent as it was on the "efficiency and whole-hearted cooperation" of the employees. "In a very realistic way," he told Walter White, the 

Navy must recognize and conform to local labor customs and usages 9 Answering Rosenberg's inquiry on the subject, the Navy gave its formula for change: 

This Department cannot take the initiative in correcting this social ill but must content 

itself with being alert to take advantage of the gradual dissolution of these racial prejudices which can be effectively brought about only by a process of social education and 

understanding. This Department is ever ready to dissolve segregation practices of long 

standing as soon as that can be done without decreasing the effectiveness of our activities. 40 

President Eisenhower's newly appointed Secretary of the Navy, Robert B. 

Anderson, endorsed Notice 75 along the same lines, informing Mitchell that the 

Navy would "measure the pace of non-segregation by the limits of what is practical and reasonable in each area.' ' 41 

36Draft Memo, Evans for Rosenberg, SecDef 291.2. Evans delivered the draft memo to Mrs. Rosenberg 

and discussed the situation with her at length ''in the spring of 1952.'' See lmerv, author with Evans, 28 Mar 

72, CMH files. On Mrs Rosenberg's request for a survey of the situation, see Memo, ASD (M&P) for Under 

SecNav, 23 Dec 52. See also Memo, CO, Norfolk Naval Shipyard, for Chief, NavPers, 23 Apr 52, P 8(4), 

BuPersRecs. 

37Mcmo, Nelson for Aide to Am SecNav, 20 May 53, P 8(4), GenRecsNav. 

Kimball succeeded Sullivan as Secretary of the Navy on 31 July 1951. 

Lus, White to SecNav, 26 May 52; Mitchell to same, 8 Feb 52; Jerry Gilliam to same, 10 Feb 52; Granger 

to same, 22 May and 27 Jun 52; SecNav to Granger, 16 Jun 52; same to White, 20 Jun 52; Chid, OIR, to Mit· 

chcll, 4 Feb 52; Under SecNav to Mitchell, 5 Mar 52. All in P 8(4), GenRecsNav. . 40Memo, Actg SecNav for ASD (M&P), 22 Jan 53; Memo, ASD (M&P) for Under SecNav, 23 Dec 52; both 

in P 8(4), GcnRecsNav. 41Ltr, SecNav to Mitchell (ca., Apr 53), O!R 161, GcnRccsNav. 
A NEW ERA BEGINS 485 

But what seemed practical and reasonable in the Navy was not necessarily so 

in the White House , where the President had publicly pledged his administration to the abolition of segregation in the federal government. Should 

Eisenhower falter, there was always his 1952 campaign ally, Congressman 

Powell, to remind him of his "forthright stand on segregation when federal 

funds are expended. " 42 In colorful prose that pulled no punches, Powell 

reminded the President of his many black supporters and pressed him on the 

Navy's continuing segregation. Although he denied Powell's charge of obstructionist tactics in the executive branch, the President had in fact been told by 

Maxwell Rabb, now serving as his minority affairs assistant, that "some government agencies were neglecting their duty. " 43 The President responded to this 

news promptly enough by ordering Rabb to supervise the executive agencies in 

their application of the presidential racial policy. Rabb thereafter discussed the 

Navy's policy with Secretary Anderson and his assistants on 11 June 1953. 

With his policy openly contradicting the President's, Anderson was in an 

awkward position. He had been unaware of the implications of the problem, he 

later explained, and had accepted his predecessor's judgment. His mistake, he 

pled, was one of timing not intent.44 Yet Anderson had conducted a wide correspondence on the subject, discussed the matter with Lester Granger, and as 

late as 28 May was still defending Notice 75, telling Special White House Assistant Wilton B. Persons that it represented a practical answer to a problem that 

could not be corrected by edict. Nor could he introduce any changes, he maintained, adopting his predecessor's argument that the Navy should "be alert to 

take advantage of its (segregation's] gradual dissolution through the process of 

social education and understanding.' '

4

) 

But neither the civil rights leaders nor the White House could be put off 

with gradualism. Anderson's stand was roundly criticized. In an address to the 

NAACP annual convention, Walter White plainly referred to the secretary's 

position as a "defiance of President Eisenhower's order. " 46 If such barbed 

criticism left the secretary unmoved, Rabb carried a stronger weapon, and in 

their 11 June meeting the two men discussed the President's order to integrate 

federally owned or controlled properties, the possibility of a Supreme Court 

decision on the same subject, and, more to the point, Powell's public 

statements concerning segregation at the Norfolk and Charleston naval 

shipyards. 47 

42Ltr, Powell to htscnhower, 17 Apr H. copy in SccNav files, GenRecsNav. 43Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandale for Change 19.53-19.56 (New York: New American Library, 1963), p. 

293. 

44 Interv, Nichols with Anderson, 18 Sep B. and Nichols UPI Release, 21 Sep B: both in Nichols Collec· 

don CMH. 

4)Lm, SecNav toW. Persons, 28 May 53; SecNav to Granger, 28 ~ay and 29 Jul 53; Granger to Anderson, 

24 Af,r and 2 }ul 53. See also Memo, Chief, NavPers for SecNav, 11 May 53. All in SecNav files, GcnRecsNav. 

4 White, Address Delivered at 44th NAACP Annual Convention, 28 }un B. copy in CMH. 

47Mcmo, Under SecNav for President, 23 Jun B. sub: Segregation in Naval Activities, attached to Ltr, 

Under SecNav to Sherman Adams, 24 }un ~3. P 8(4), GenRecsNav. 
486 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Anderson then proceeded to reverse 

his position. He began by ordering a 

survey of a group of southern installations to estimate the effect of integration on their civilian programs. He 

learned segregation could be virtually 

eliminated at these shipyards and stations within six months, although 

Under Secretary Charles S. Thomas, 

who prepared the report,. agreed with 

the local commanders that an integration directive would be certain to cause 

trouble. But the formula chosen by the 

commanders for eliminating segregation, in which Thomas concurred, 

might well have given Anderson pause. 

They wanted to remove racial signs 

from drinking fountains and toilets, 

certain that the races would continue 

using separate facilities, and leave the 

problem of segregated cafeterias till 

SECRETARY ANDERSON 

member of the fleet. 

talks to a 

later. It was the unanimous opinion of those involved, Thomas reported, that 

the situation should not be forced by "agitators," a category in which they all 

placed Powell. 

On 20 August Anderson directed commanders of segregated facilities to proceed steadily toward complete elimination of racial barriers. Furthermore, each 

commander was to submit a. progress report on 1 November and at sixty-day intervals thereafter. 48 Although the secretary was concerned with the possible reaction of the civil rights groups were integration not achieved in the first sixty 

days, he was determined to give local commanders some leeway in carrying out 

his order. 49 But he made it clear to the press that he did not intend "to put up 

with inaction. II 

He need not have worried. Evans reported on 29 October that integration of 

the Charleston shipyard was almost complete and had occurred so far without 

incident. In fact, he told Assistant Secretary of Defense John A. Hannah, the 

reaction of the local press and community had been ''surprisingly tolerant and 

occasionally favorable.' •)O Evans, however, apparently overlooked an attempt by 

some white employees to discourage the use of integrated facilities. Although 

there was no disorder, the agitators were partly successful; the Chief of In48ALL NAV, 20 Aug 53; Ltr, Chief, Industrial Relations, to Commandant, 6th Naval District, 21 Aug ~3. 

OIR 200, GenRecsNav. For an example of how the new policy was transmitted to the field, sec COMFIVE In· 

struction 5800, ~ Sep 53, A. (2), GcnRecsNav. 

49Intcrv, Nichols with Anderson; Nichols News Release, 23 Sep 53. in Nichols Collection. CMH. 

)

0Evans, Weekly Thursday Report to ASD (M&P). 29 Oct 53. SD 291.2. Begun by Evans as a means of in· 

forming Rosenberg of activities in his office, the Weekly Thursday Report was adopted by the assistant 

secretary for use in all parts of the manpower office. 
A NEW ERA BEGINS 487 

dustrial Relations reported that white usage had dropped severely. 51 Nevertheless by 14 January 1954 this same officer could tell Secretary Anderson that 

all racial barriers for civilian employees had been eliminated without incident. 52 

Dependent Children and.Integrated Schools 

The Department of Defense's effort to integrate schools attended by servicemen's children .proved infinitely more complex than integrating naval 

shipyards. In a period when national attention was focused on the constitutional 

implications of segregated education, the Eisenhower administration was thrust 

into a dispute over the intent of federal aid to education and eventually into a 

reappraisal of the federal role in public education. Confusing to the Department of Defense, the President's personal attitude remained somewhat ambiguous throughout the controversy. He had publicly committed himself to 

ending segregation in federally financed institutions, yet he had declared 

scruples against federal interference with state laws and customs that would prevent him from acting to keep such a pledge when all its ramifications were 

revealed. 

In fact not one but four separate categories of educational institutions came 

under scrutiny. Only the first category, schools run by the U.S. Office of Education for the Department of Defense overseas and on military reservations in the 

United States, operated exclusively with federal funds. The next two categories, 

schools operated by local school districts on military reservations and schools on 

federal land usually adjacent to a military reservation, were supported by local 

and state funds with federal subsidies. The fourth and by far the largest group 

contained the many community schools attended by significant numbers of 

military dependents. These schools received considerable federal support 

through the impact aid program. 

The federal support program for schools in ''federally impacted'' areas 

added yet another dimension to the administration's reappraisal. The impact 

aid legislation (Public Laws 815 and 87 4), 53 like similar programs during World 

War II, was based on the premise that a school district derived no tax from land 

occupied by a federal installation but usually incurred an increase in school 

enrollment. In many cases the enrollment of military dependents was far greater 

than that of the communities in the school district. Actually, these programs 

were not limited to the incursion of military families; the most extreme federal 

impact in terms of enrollment percentages was found in remote mountain 

districts where in some cases almost all students were children of U.S. Forest Service or National Park Service employees. 

In recognition of these inequities in the tax system, Congress gave such 

school systems special "in-lieu of tax" support. Public Law 815 provided for 

capital projects, land, buildings, and major equipment; Public Law 874 gave 

51 Memo, Chief, Industrial Relations, for SecNav, 5 Nov 53. sub: Segregation of Facilities for Civil Service 

Em~loyees: sec also Ltr, SecNav to President, 9 Nov 53; both in P 8(4), GcnRccsNav. 2

Mcmo. Chief, Industrial Relations, for SecNav, 5 Nov 53. sub: Segregation of Facilities for Civil Service Em~loyees, P 8(4), GenRecsNav. 

3PL 815, 23 Sep 50, 64 U.S. 967: PL 874, 30 Sep 50, 64 U.S. 1100. 
488 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

operating support in the form of salaries, supplies, and the like. If, for example, 

a school district could prove at least 3 percent of its enrollment federally connected, it was eligible to receive from the U.S. Office of Education a grant equal 

to the district's cost of instruction for federally connected students. If it could 

show federally connected enrollment necessitated additional classrooms, the 

school district was eligible for federally financed buildings. Such schools were 

usually concentrated in military housing areas, but examples existed of federally 

financed schools, like federal dependents, scattered throughout the school 

district. Students from the community at large attended the federally constructed schools and the school district continued to receive state support for all 

students. Although Public Law 874 was far more important in terms of general 

application and fiscal impact, its companion piece, Public Law 815, was more 

important to integration because it involved the construction of schools. From 

the beginning Congress sought to prevent these laws from becoming a means by 

which federal authorities exercised control over the operation of school districts. 

It stipulated that ''no department, officer or employee of the United States shall 

exercise any direction, supervision or control over the personnel, curriculum or 

program of instruction" of any local school or school system.~4 The firmness of 

this admonition, an indication of congressional opinion on this important issue, 

later played a decisive part in the integration story. 

Attacks on segregation in schools attended by military dependents did not 

begin until the early fifties when the Army, in answer to complaints concerning 

segregated schools in Texas, Oklahoma, and Virginia, began using a stock 

answer to the effect that the schools were operated by state agencies as part of 

the state school system subject to state law .~) Trying to justify the situation to 

Clarence Mitchell, Assistant Secretary of the Army Fred Korth cited Public Law 

874, whose intent, he claimed, was that educating children residing on federal 

property was the responsibility of ''the local educational agency.' •% 

Senator Humphrey, for one, was not to be put off by such an interpretation. 

He reminded Assistant Secre'tary Rosenberg that President Truman had vetoed 

an education bill in 19 51 because of provisions requiring segregation in schools 

on federal property. As a member of the subcommittee that guided Public Law 

874 through Congress, Humphrey could assure Rosenberg that at no time did 

Congress include language requiring segregation in post schools. Thanks to the 

Army's interpretation, he observed, local community segregation practices were 

being extended for the first time to federal property under the guise of compliance with federal law. He predicted further incursions by the segregationists 

if this move was left unchallenged. 7 

Hsec. 7a, PL874 , 64 U.S. 1100. 

))DA Office of Legislative Liaison Summary Sheet for ASA, 27 Sep 51, sub: Alleged Segregation Practiced 

at Fort Bliss, Texas, CS 291.2 Negroes (17 Sep 51); Ltr, CG, The Artillery School, to Parents of School Age 

Children, 2 Sep 52, sub: School information , AG 352.9 AKPSIGP. For examples of complaints on segregated 

schools, see Lrrs, Sen. Huben H. Humphrey to ASD (M&P), 16 Jun 52, and Die, Washington Bureau, 

NAACP, to SecDef, 2 Ocr 52; both in OASD (M&P) 291.2. 

56Drafr Ltr, ASA (M&P) to Mitchell. Although he never dispatched ir, Korth used this letter as a bas.is for a 

discussion of rhe matter with Mitchell in an October 1952 meeting. 57Ltc, Humphrey to ASD {M&P), 16 Oct 52, OASD (M&P) 291.2. 
A NEW ERA BEGINS 489 

After conferring with both Humphrey and Mitchell, Rosenberg took the 

matter of segregated schools on military posts to the U.S. Commissioner of 

Education, Earl J. McGrath. With Secretary of Defense Lovett's approval she 

put the department on record as opposed to segregated schools on posts because 

they were "violative not only of the policy of the Department" but also of "the 

policy set forth by the President.' •)S Evidently McGrath saw Public Law 874 in 

the same light, for on 15 January 1953 he informed Rosenberg that if the 

Department of Defense outlawed segregated dependent schooling and local 

educational agencies were unable to comply, his office would have to make 

' 'other arrangements'' for the children. )

9 

Commissioner McGrath proposed that his office discuss the integration 

question further with Defense Department representatives but the change in 

administrations interrupted these negotiations and Rosenberg's successor, John 

A. Hannah, made it clear that there would be no speedy change in the racial 

composition of post schools. Commenting at Hannah's request on the points 

raised by McGrath, the Army's principal personnel officer concluded that integration should be considered a departmental goal, but one that should be approached by steps ''consistent with favorable local conditions as determined by 

the installation commander concerned." In his opinion, committing the 

department to integration of all on-post schools, as the Assistant Secretary of 

Defense had proposed earlier, would create teacher procurement problems and 

additional financial burdens.60 This cautious endorsement of integrated schools 

was further qualified by the Secretary of the Army. It was a "desirable goal," he 

told Hannah, but "positive steps to eliminate segregation . . . should be 

preceded by a careful analysis of the impact on each installation concerned. " 61 

Hannah then broke off negotiations with the Office of Education. 

The matter was rescued from bureaucratic limbo when in answer to a question during his 19 March 1953 press conference President Eisenhower promised 

to investigate the school situation, adding: 

I will say this-! repeat it, I have said it again and again: whenever Federal funds are expended for anything , I do not sec how any American can justify-legally, or lo~ically, or 

morally-a discrimination in the expenditure of those funds as among our cimens. All 

are taxed tO provide these funds. If there is any benefit to be derived from them, I think 

they must all share, regardless of such inconsequential factors as race and religion.62 

The sweeping changes implied in this declaration soon became apparent. 

Statistics compiled as a result of the White House investigation revealed that 

federa l dependents attended thousands of schools, a complex mix of educational institutions having little more in common than their mutual dependence 

)

8Ltr, ASD (M&P) to U.S. Commissioner of Educ, 10 Jan B. SecDef 291.2. 

)'>Lu, U.S. Commissioner of Educ to ASD (M&P), 15 Jan 53; Ltr, ASD (M&P) to Humphrey. 10 Jan 53; 

both in OASD 291.2. 600-1 Summary Sheet for CofS, 13 Feb B, sub: Segregation of School Children on Military Installations, 

G-1 291.2 (15 Jan 53). 61 Mcmo, Exec Off, SA. for ASD (M&P), 20 Feb 53, sub: Proposed Reply to U.S. Commissioner of Education Regarding Segregation in Dependent Schools, copy in G-1291.2 (15 Jan 53). 62 Prcsident's News Conference, 19 Mar 53. Public Papers of the Prm'denl!: Dwight D. Eismhower, 1953, 

p. 108. 
490 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940- 1965 

in whole or part on federal funds. 63 Most were under local government control 

and the great majority, including the community public schools, were situated a 

long distance from any military base. The President was no doubt unaware of 

the ramifications of federal enrollment and impacted aid on the nation's schools 

when he made his declaration, and, given his philosophy of government and the 

status of civil rights at the time , it is not surprising that his promise to look into 

the subject came to nothing. From the beginning Secretary of Defense Wilson 

limited the departmenr' s campaign against segregated schools to those on 

federa l property rather than those using federa l funds. And even this limited effort to integrate schools on federal property encountered determined opposition 

from many local officials and only the halfhearted support of some of the federal 

officials involved . 

The Department of Defense experienced few problems at first as it integrated its own schools. Its overseas schools, especially in Germany and Japan, 

had always been integrated, and its schools in the United States now quickly followed suit. Eleven in number, they were paid for and operated by the U.S. 

Commissioner of Education because the states in which they were located prohibited the use of state funds for schools on federal property. With only 

minimal public attention, all but one of these schools was operating on an integrated basis by 1953. The exception was the elementary school at Fore Benning, Georgia , which at the request of the local school board remained a whiteonly school. On 20 March 1953 the new Secretary of the Army, Robert T. 

Stevens, informed the White House that this school had been ordered to commence integrated operations in the fall. 64 

The inregration of schools operated by local school authorities on military 

posts was not so simple, and before the controversy died down the Department 

of Defense found itself assuming responsibility for a number of formerly stateoperated institutions. As of April 1953 , twenty-one of these sixty-three schools 

in rhc United States were operating on a segregated basis. (Table 12) 

The Secretary of the Army promised to investigate the possibility of integrating schools on Army bases and to consider further action with the Commissioner of Education "as the situation is clarified." He warned the President 

that to "prod the commissioner" into setting up inregrated federal schools 

when segregated state schools were available would invite charges in the press 

and Congress of squandering money. Moreover, newly assembled faculties 

would have state accreditation problems. ~ Admitting that there were complicating factors, the President ignored the secretary's warnings and noted that 

63Mcmo for Red , Human Relations and Research Br. G- 1 (ca. Mar 53). copy in CMI-1. See also Memo, 

Under SccNav for ASD (M&P), II Mar '53 . sub: Schools Opcrarcd by the Department of the Navy Pursuant to 

Sen ion 6 and 3 of Public Law 874. 81:st Congress, A 18, GcnRecsNav; " List of States and Whether or Not 

Segregation is Praniccd in Schools for Dependents. as Given by Colonel Br:>dy. OPNS Seen. AGO. In Charge 

of DcpcndciHS Schools. 16 Oct 51, " OSA 291.2 Negroes. 

MMerno. SA for James llagen y, \'<lhitc House Press Secretary. 20 Mar 53. sub: Segregation in Army 

Schools. copy in CMH. 6~ id . 
A NEW ERA BEGINS 

T AULE 12- 0EFENSE iNSTAlLATIONS WITH SEGREGATED PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

State Installation 

Alabama (C) 1• • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • • . • • . • • • . • • . • . • • Maxwell Air Force Base 

Craig Air Force Base 

Arkansas (S) 2 • • . • • • . • • . . • . • . • • • • • . • . • • • • . • • • • Pine Bluff Arsenal (Army) 

Florida (C) . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MacDill Air Force Base 

Eglin Air Force Base 

Tyndall Air Force Base 

Naval Air Station, Pensacola 

Patrick Air Force Base 

Maryland (S) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrews Air Force Base 

Naval Air Station, Patuxent 

Naval Powder Factory, Indianhead 

Oklahoma (C) . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . • . . . . . . . • . . . . • . . Fon Sill (Army) 

Texas (C) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . • . • . . . . . . . Fort Bliss (Army) 

Fort Hood (Army) 

Fort Sam Houston (Army) 

Randolph Air Force Base 

Reese Air Force Base 

Shepherd Air Force Base 

Lackland Air Force Base 

Virginia (C) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fort Belvoir (Army) 

Langley Air Force Base 

(C) indicates segregation required by state constitution. 2

(S) indicates segregation required by state stature. 

491 

if integrated schools could not be provided by state authorities "other arrangements will be considered.' '

66 

Others in the administration took these complications more seriously. Oveta 

Culp Hobby, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, was concerned with 

the attitude of Congress and the press. She pleaded for more time to see what 

the Supreme Court would rule on the subject and to study the effect of the conversion to federally operated schools ''so that we can feel confident of our 

ground in the event further action should be called for.'' Going a step further 

than the Secretary of the Army, Hobby suggested delaying action on the twentyone segregated schools on posts ''for the immediate present.' '

67 

In marked contrast to Hobby's recommendation, and incidentally buttressing popular belief in the existence of an interdepartmental dispute on the subject, Secretary of Defense Wilson told the President that he wanted to end 

segregation in all schools on military installations ''as swiftly as practicable.'' He 

admitted it would be difficult, as a comprehensive and partially covert survey of 

the school districts by the local commanders had made clear. The commanders 

found, for example, that the twenty-one school districts involved would not 

66Memo, Eisenhower for SecDef, 25 Mar 53. sub: Segregation in Schools on Army Posrs; Memo, Bernard 

Shanley (Special Counsel to President) .for SA, 25 Mar 53; both in 124A-4 Eisenhower Library. 

67

Ltr, Secy of HEW. to SecDef, 13 Apr 53, copy in CMH. 
492 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

operate the schools as integrated institutions. Wilson also stressed that operating 

the schools under federal authority would be very expensive, but his recommendation was explicit. There should be no exact timetable, but the schools should 

be integrated before the 1955 fall term.68 

Although both Wilson and Hobby later denied that the Department of 

Health, Education, and Welfare was opposed to integrating the schools, rumors 

and complaints persisted throughout the summer of 1953 that Hobby opposed 

swift action and had carried her opposition "to the cabinet level. " 69 Lending 

credence to these rumors, President Eisenhower later admitted that there was 

some foot-dragging in his official family . He had therefore ordered minority affairs assistant Rabb, already overseeing the administration's fight against 

segregated shipyards, to ''track down any inconsistencies of this sort in the rest 

of the departments and agencies of the government.'' 70 

The interdepartmental dispute was quickly buried by Wilson's dramatic 

order of 12 January 1954. Effective as of that date, the secretary announced, "no 

new school shall be opened for operation on a segregated basis, and schools 

presently so conducted shall cease operating on a segregated basis, as soon as 

practicable, and under no circumstances later than September 1, 195 5. " 71 

Wilson promised to negotiate with local authorities, but if they were unable to 

comply the Commissioner of Education would be requested to provide integrated facilities through tihe provisions of Public Law 874. Interestingly, the 

secretary's order predated the Supreme Court decision on segregated education 

by some four months. 

The order prompted considerable public response. The Anti-Defamation 

League of B'nai B'rith telegraphed "hearty approval of your directive ... action is consonant with democratic ideals and in particular with the military 

establishment's successful program of integration in the armed forces. " 72 

Walter White added the NAACP's approval in a similar vein, and many individual citizens offered congratulations. n But not all the response was 

favorable. Congressman Arthur A. Winstead of Mississippi asked the secretary 

to outline for him "wherein you believe that procedure will add anything whatsoever to the defense of this country. Certainly it appears to me that you have 

68Ltr, SecDef to President, 29 May :>3. copy in CMH. On rhe Army's investigation of the schools, sec also 

G-1 Summary Sheer for CofS. 6 Apr 53, sub: Segregation in Schools on Army Posrs. CS 291.2 Negroes (25 

Mar 53), and the following: Lrrs, TAG ro CG's, Continental Armies er al., 30 Mar 53. and to CG, Fourth 

Army, 17 Apr 53. sub: Segregation in Schools on Army Posts, AGAO-R 352.9 (17 Apr 53); Memo. Dir of 

Pers Policy, OSD, for ACS/G-1 and Chief of NavPers. 6 May 53; Statement for Sherman Adams in reply to 

Telg, Powell to President. as attachment to Memo, ASD (M&P) for SecNav, 5 Jun 53; last rwo in OASD 

(M&P) 291.2. 69DOD OPI Release. I Feb 54; UPI News Release, 31 Jan 54; Tclg, Powell to President, ca. 1 Jun 53; Ltr, 

President to Powell, 6 Jun 53; Press Release, Congressman Powell, 10 Jun 53; NAACP Press Release, 16 Nov 

53; White, Address Delivered at 44th NAACP Annual Convention, 28 Jun 53. Copies of all in Nichols Collection, CMH. See also New York Times, February I, 1954. 70Eisenhowcr, Mandate for Change, p. 293. 71Memo, SecDcf for SA er al., 12 Jan 54, sub: Schools on Military Installations for Dependents of Military 

and Civilian Pe'rsonnel, SecDcf 291.2. 

72Telg, Ami-Defamation League of B'nai B'rirh to Wilson, I Feb 54, Se·cDef 29 1.2. 73Telg, Walter White to SecDef, I Feb 54; and as an example of a letter from an indivdual citizen, see Ltr, 

Mrs. Louis Shearer to SecDef, I Feb 54 ; both in SecDef 291.2. 
A NEW ERA BEGINS 493 

every reason anyone could desire to refuse to take action which is in total violation of certain state laws. " 74 

The three services quickly responded to the order. By 18 February all had 

issued specific directives for enforcing it. The Secretary of the Navy, for example, declared that the "policy of non-segregation would apply 

co the operation of existing schools and school facilities hereafter constructed on Navy 

and Marine Corps installations within the United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico 

and the Virgin Islands, the area in which Public Law 874 and . .. 815 . . . are 

operative ... . In the case of PL 874 this area will be extended, effective 1 July 1954, to 

include Wake Island .... the same policy of non-segregation will apply in all Navyoperated schools for de~endent children of military and civilian personnel of the 

Department of Defense. 7 

Any local school official hoping for a reprieve from the deadlines expressed 

in these orders was likely to be d~sappointed. In response to queries on the subject, ch_e services quoted their instructions, and if they excused continued 

segregation during the 1954 school year they were adamant about the 

September 1955 integration date. 76 The response of Secretary of the Air Force 

Talbo'tt to one request for an extension revealed the services' determination to 

stick to the letter of the Wilson order. Talbott agreed with the superintendent of 

the Montgomery County, Alabama , school board that local school boards were 

best qualified to run the schools for dependent children of the military, but he 

refused to extend the deadline. "Unilateral action in the case of individual Air 

Force base schools would be in violation of the directive ,'' he explained, adding: 

''At such time as the Alabama legislature acts to permit your local board of 

education to operate the school at Maxwell AFB on an integrated basis, the Air 

Force will return openi.tional responsibility for the school to the local board at 

the earliest practicable date.'' 77 

As a result of this unified determination on the part of departmental officials, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense could announce in 

December 1954 that two of the schools, the one at Craig Air Force Base, 

Alabama, and Fort Belvoir, Virginia, were integrated; two others, the Naval Air 

Station school at Pensacola, Florida, and Reese Air Force Base, Texas, had been 

closed; the remaining seventeen would be fully integrated by the September 

1955 deadline. 78 Lee Nichols, a prolific writer on integration, reported in 

November 1955 that schools segregated for generations suddenly had black and 

74Ltr, Winstead to SecDcf. 18 Feb 54, SecDef 291.2. 

cNav Instruction 5 700.1 , 18 Feb 54, which was renewed by SecNav Instruction 17755.1 A, 31 Jul 58. 

For othe r services, sec Memo, Chief, Pers Ser Div. USAF, for all Major Zl Commands and Alaskan Air Com· 

mand, 8 Feb 54, sub: Elimination of Segregation in On-Base Schools, AFPMP- 12, AF files; Ltr, TAG co 

CG 's, Continental Armies, MOW, 4 Feb 54, sub: Elimination of Segregation in On-Post Public Schools, AGCP 352.9 (4 Feb 54). 

76Ltr, SccNav w Clarence Mitchell, 30 Apr 54 ; Ltr, Jack Cochrane, BuPers Realty Legal Section, co B. 

Alden Lillywhitc, Dept of HEW, 20 Apr 5o 4; both in P 11- 1, GenRccsNav. See also Ltr, ASD (M&P) to Commissioner of Educ, 3 May 55; Ltr, ASD (M&P) to Dr.]. W. Edgar, Texas Education Agency, 3 May 55; both in 

OASD (M&P) 291.2 (3 May 55). 77Ltr, SecAF to Superintendent of Montgomery Public Schools, 12 Jan 55, SecAF files. 78Mcmo foe Red, Chief, Morale and Welfare Br, ASD (M&P), 17 Dec 54, sub: Integration of Certain 

Schools Located on Military lnscallations, OASD (M&P) 291.2. 
494 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

white children sitting side by side. This move by the armed forces, he pointed 

out, could have far-reaching effects. Educators from segregated community 

schools would be watching the military experiment closely for lessons in how to 

comply with the Supreme Court's desegregation order. 79 

Strictly speaking there were more than twenty-one segregated schools 

operating on federal installations. A small group of institutions built and 

operated by local authorities stood on land leased from the services. At the time 

of Secretary Wilson's order this category of schools included three with 75-year 

leases, those at Fort Meade, Maryland, and Fort Bliss and Biggs Air Force Base, 

Texas, and one with a 25-year lease at Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas.80 The Air 

Force's general counsel believed the lease could be broken in light of the Wilson 

order, but the possibility developed that some extensions might be granted to 

these schools because of the lease complication. 81 The Secretary of the Army 

went right to the point, asking the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Carter L. 

Burgess, for an extension in the case of Fort Meade pending Maryland's integration of its schools under the Supreme Court's decisionY In response Burgess 

ordered, as of 1 June 1955, the exemption of four schools. "No attempt shall be 

made," he informed the services, "to break the lease or take over operation of 

the schools pending further instruction from the Secretary of Defense.' '

83 

It was some time before the question of temporary extensions was resolved. 

Two of the leased property schools, Biggs and Fort Bliss, were integrated before 

the September deadline as a result of a change in state law in the wake of the 

Supreme Court's decision. Then, on 16 July 1956, the Assistant Secretary of the 

Army reported that the phased integration of Fort Meade's elementary school 

had started .

84 The Pine Bluff Arsenal case was still unresolved in 1956, but since 

at that time there were no black dependents at the installation it was not considered so pressing by Burgess, who allowed the extension to continue beyond 

1956. Besides, it turned out there were still other schools in this category that 

the Navy had temporarily exempted from the September 1955 deadline. The 

school at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, for example, which had no black 

dependents eligible for attendance, was allowed to continue to operate as usual 

while negotiations were under way for the transfer of the school and property to 

79UPI News Release, Incl to Memo, Dir, DOD Office of Public Information, for ASD (M&P). 10 Nov 55. 

OASD (M&P) 291.2. 80Lrr, Col Staunton Brown, USA, District Engineer, Little Rock Dimict, to Division Engineer, 

Southwestern Div, 8 Jun 56. sub: Meeting With Representatives of White Hall School District. Pine Bluff 

Arsenal; Memo, ASSt Adjutant, Second Army, for CG, Second Army, 7 Jun %, sub: Lease for Meade Heights 

Elementary School; copies of both in OASD (M&P) 291.2. 81Memo, AF General Counsel for Dir of Mil Pers, 29 Mar 55. sub: Lease on Property Occupied by Briggs 

Air Force Base Dependent's School; Memo, Asst SecAF for ASD (M&P). 24 May 55. sub: Biggs Air Force Base 

Dependent School; both in SecAF files. 82Memo, ASA for ASD (M&P). 3 May 55. sub: Elimination of Segregation in On·Posr Public Schools, 

OASD (M&P) 291.2. 83Memo, ASD (M&P) for SA er at. , 1 Jun 55. sub: Operation of Dependent Schools on Military lnstalla· 

dons on an Integrated Basis; idem for SecDef et al., 25 Aug 55, sub: Status of Racial Integration in Schools on 

Military Installations for Dependents of Military and Civilian Personnel; both in OASD (M&P) 291 .2 (25 Aug 

55). 

84Memo, ASA for ASD (M&P), 16 Jul 56. sub: Status of Racial Integration in Schools at Fort George G. 

Meade, Maryland, and Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas, OASD (M&P) 291.2. 
A NEW ERA BEGINS 495 

READING CLASS IN THE MILITARY DEPENDENTS SCHOOL, Yokohama, japan, 1955. 

the St. Mary's County, Maryland, school board.8s A lease for the temporary use 

of buildings by local authorities for segregated schools on the grounds of the 

New Orleans Naval Air Station was allowed to run on until 1959 because of 

technicalities in the lease, but not, however, without considerable public comment.86 

The Department of Defense could look with pride at its progress. In less 

than three years after President Eisenhower had promised to look into 

segregated schools for military dependents, the department had integrated hundreds of classrooms, inducing local authorities to integrate a series of schools in 

areas that had never before seen blacks and whites educated together. It had 

even ordered the integration of classes conducted on post by local universities 

S)Mcmo, Cmdr Charles B. Rcinhardr, OASD (M&P), for Brig Gcn John H. lvcs, Mil Policy Div, OASD 

(M&P), 26 Ocr 55, sub: School ar Patuxent River Naval Air Stations, OASD (M&P) 291.2 . 86Scc rhe following Memos: ASD (M&P) for SccNav, 18 Nov 55. sub: Integration in Schools on Milirary 

lnsrallations for Department of Military and Civilian Personnel; idem for Assr SecNav (P&RF), 23 Jan 56. sub: 

Segregation in Schools ar rbe New Orleans Naval Base. Algiers, Louisiana; Assr SecNav (P&RF) for ASD 

(M&P), 7 Apr 56, same sub; ASD (M&P) for Asst SecNav (FM). 15 Aug 58, sub: U.S. Naval Station, New 

Orleans, Louisiana: One Year Extension of Oudeasc With Orleans Parish School Board, New Orleans, Loui· 

siana; Ltrs, CO. New Orleans Naval Sration, to Rev. Edward Schlick, 24 Feb 56, and Rear Adm John M. Will, 

OASD (M&P), to Clarence Mitchell, NAACP, 6 Dec 55 and 18 Apr 56. All in OASD (M&P) 291.2. For public 

imeresr in the case, sec rhc files of the Chief of Naval Personnel (P 11-1) for the years 1956-59. 
496 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

and voluntarily attended by servicemen in off-duty hours.87 Yet many dependent schools were untouched because Wilson's order applied only to schools on 

federal property. It ignored the larg¢st category of dependent schools, those in 

the local community that because of heavy enrollment of federal dependents 

were supported in whole or part by federal funds. In these institutions some 

28,000 federal dependents were being educated in segregated classes. Integration for them would have to await the long court battles that followed Brown v. 

Board of Education. 

This dreary prospect had not always seemed so inevitable. Although 

Wilson's order ignored local public schools, civil rights advocates did not, and 

the problem of off-base segregation, typified by the highly publicized school at 

the Little Rock Air Force Base in 1958, became an issue involving not only the 

Department of Defense but the whole administration. The decision to withhold 

federal aid to school districts that remained segregated in defiance of court 

orders was clearly beyond the power of the Department of Defense. In a 

memorandum circulated among Pentagon officials in October 1958, Assistant 

Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Elliot C. Richardson discussed the 

legal background of federal aid to schools attended by military dependents, 

especially congressional intent and the definition of ''suitable'' facilities as expressed in Public Laws 815 and 874. He also took up the question of whether to 

provide off-base integrated schooling, balancing the difficult problem of 

protecting the civil rights of federal employees against the educational advantages of a state-sponsored education system. Richardson mentioned the great 

variation in school population- some bases having seven high school aged 

children one year, none the next- and the fact that the cost of educating the 

28,087 dependents attending segregated schools in 1957 would amount to more 

than $49 million for facilities and $8.7 million annually for operations. He was 

left with one possible conclusion, that "irrespective of our feelings about the 

unsuitability of segregated education as a matter of principle, we are constrained 

by the legislative history, the settled administrative construction, and the other 

circumstances surrounding the statutes in question to adhere to the existing interpretation of them.' '

88 

Richardson might be "constrained" ro accept the status quo, but some 

black parents were not. In the fall of 1958 matters came to a head at the school 

near the Little Rock air base. Here was a new facility, built by the local school 

board exclusively with federal funds, on state land, and intended primarily for 

the education of dependents living at a newly constructed military base. On the 

eve of the school's opening, the Pulaski County school board informed the Air 

Force that the school would be for white students only. The decision was 

brought to the President's attention by a telegram from a black sergeant's wife 

whose child was denied admission. 89 The telegram was only the first in a series of 

87

Ltr. Sen. Herbert Lehman to Sec De f. 10 Oct ~6; Lrr. SccDcf to Lehman, I~ Oct ~6. both in SO 291.2. 88Memo. A sst Sccy of HEW for Sccy of HEW. 4 Oct ~8. sub: Payments of Segregated Schools Under P .L. 

81 ~and P.L. 874. lnclto Lrr, Assr Sccy of HEW to ASD (M&P). 10 Oct ~8. OASD (M&P)29 1.2 (10 Oct ~8) . 89Mcmo, Dir of Pcrs Policy. OSD. for Stephen Jackson. 29 Aug ~8. sub: Air Force Segregated School 

Situation in Pulaski County, Arkansas (San Francisco Chronicle article of Aug 26. )8); Memo for Rec, Stephen 
A NEW ERA BEGINS 497 

protests from congressmen, civil rights organizations, and interested citizens. 

For all the Defense Department had a stock answer: there was nothing the Air 

Force could do. The service neither owned nor operated the school, and the impact aid laws forbade construction of federal school facilities if the local school 

districts could provide public school education for federal dependents.90 

The department would not get off the hook so easily; the President wanted 

something done about the Little Rock school, although he wanted his interest 

kept quiet. 91 Yet any action would have unpleasant consequences. If the department transferreJ the father, it was open to a court suit on his behalf; if it tried to 

force integration on the local authorities, they would close the school. Since 

neither course was acceptable, Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles C. 

Finucane ordered his troubleshooter, Stephen Jackson, to Little Rock to investigate. 92 

Before he went to Little Rock, Jackson met with officials from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and decided, with the concurrence of 

the Department of Justice, that the solution lay in government purchase of the 

land. The school would then be on a military base and subject to integration. 

Should local authorities refuse to operate the integrated on-base school, the Air 

Force would do so. In that evenc, Jackson warned local officials on his arrival in 

Arkansas, the school district would lose much of its federal enrollment and 

hence its very important federal subsidy. Nor could the board be assured that 

the federal acquisition would be limited to one school. Jackson later admitted 

the local black school had also been constructed with federal funds, and he 

could not guarantee that it would escape federal acquisition. Board members 

queried Jackson on this point, introducing the possibility that the federal 

government might try to acquire local high schools, also attended in large 

numbers by military dependents and also segregated. Jackson assured the school 

board that the department I 

1 had no desire to change the community patterns 

where schools were already in existence merely because they received federal 

aid,' ' 93 a statement that amounted to a new federal policy. 

Jackson failed to convince the board , and in late October 1958 it rejected the 

government's offer to run an incegrated school on land purchased from them. 94 

Jackson thereupon met with justice officials and together they decided that 

sometime before 1 January 1959 the Justice Department would acquire title to 

the school land for one year by taking a leasehold through the right of eminent 

Jackson, OASD (M&P), 8 Oct 58, sub: Integration of Little Rock Air Force Base School, Jacksonville, Ark., at· 

tached to Memo. ASD (M&P) for SA et al., 10 Ocr 58. All in OASD (M&P) 291.2. 

9°Sce. for example, Lus. Dir of Pers Policy, OSD, to Sen. Richard L. Neuberger, 10 Sep 58, and ASD/M 

to Congressman Charles C. Diggs. Jr., 23 Oct 58. Sec also Memo. Dep Dir of Mil Pers. USAF. for Asst SecAF 

(Manpower, Pers, and Res Forces), 9 Oct 58. sub: Dependent Schools. All in OASD (M&P) 291.2. 

91Memo, Lt Col Winston P. Anderson, Exec Off, Asst SecAF (M&P). for Asst SecAF (M&P), 24 Nov 58. 

SccAF files. 

92

Memo, ASD (MP&R) for SA ct al.. 10 Oct 58, OASD (MP&R) 291.2; Memo for Red, Spec Asst to Asst 

Sec A F. 17 Oct 58, sub: Meeting With Mr. Finucane and Mr. Jackson re Little Rock Air Force Base, SecAF files. 93Mcmo for Red, Dep ASD (MR&P), 8 Oct 58, sub: Integration of Little Rock Air Force Base School, 

Jacksonville, Ark.; attached to Memo, ASD (MP&R) for SA et al., 10 Oct 58. OASD (MP&R) 291.2. 

94Memo for Red, Dep Asst SecAF. 24 Nov 58. SccAF fi les. 
498 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

domain. They did not at that time, however, formulate any definite plan of action to accomplish the school take-over. 95 

It was just as well, for soon after this decision was reached the NAACP 

brought up the subject of dependent schools near the Air Force bases at 

Blytheville, Arkansas, and Stewart, Tennessee. 96 Air Force Deputy Assistant 

Secretary James P. Goode was quick to point out that there were at least five 

other segregated schools constructed with federal funds, situated near Air Force 

bases, and attended almost exclusively by federal dependents. He also predicted 

that a careful survey would reveal perhaps another fifteen schools in segregated 

districts serving only Air Force dependents. In light of these facts, and with a 

frankly confessed aversion to the administration's acquisition of the properties 

by right of eminent domain, Goode preferred to have the schools integrated in 

an orderly manner through the supervision of the federal courcs.97 

This attitude was to prevail for some time in the Department of Defense. In 

April 1961, for example, tlhe Assistant Secretary for Manpower informed a 

Senate subcommittee that, while schools under departmental jurisdiction were 

integrated ''without reservation and with successful results,'' many children of 

black servicemen stationed in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and elsewhere still 

attended segregated off-post schools. Adjacent to military posts and attended 

"in whole or in part by federal dependents," these schools "conformed to state 

rather than federal laws. " 98 And as late as May 196 3, a naval official admitted 

there was no way for the Navy to require school officials in Key West, Florida, to 

conform to the Department of Defense's policy of equal opportunity.99 

Yet even as the principle of noninterference with racial patterns of the local 

community emerged intact from the lengthy controversy, exceptions to its practical application continued to multiply. In the fall of 1959, less than a year after 

the administration suspended its campaign to integrate off-base schools in 

Arkansas, black Air Force dependents quietly entered the Little Rock school. At 

the same time, schools catering predominantly to military dependents near 

bases in Florida and Tennessee integrated with little public attent!on. 100 Under 

pressure from the courts, and after President Eisenhower had discussed the case 

in a national press conference in terms of the proper use of impact aid in 

segregated districts, the city of Norfolk, Virginia, agreed to integrate its 15,000 

students, roughly one-third of whom were military dependents. 101 

?)Ibid.; Memo, Lr Col Winston P. Anderson, Exec Off, Assr SecAF (M&P) for Asst SecAF (M&P), 24 Nov 

58. SecAF files. 

96Mcmo, Asst SecAF (M&P)for Under SecAF, 26 Nov 58, SccAF files. 

?7Mcmo, Dcp Asst SccAF (MP&R) for Assr SecAF (MP&R), 26 Nov 58, sub: Little Rock Air Force Base 

Elementary School, SccAF files. 98Mcmo, ASD (M) for Chmn, Subcommittee on Education, Cn1te on Labor and Pub Welfare, of the U.S. 

Senate, 25 Apr 61, OASD (M) 291.2. 

99Ltr, Rear Adrn C. K. Duncan, Asst Chief for Plans, BuPcrs, to Mrs. Rosetta McCullough, 16 May 63. 

P 8. GcnRecsNav. 100Morton Puner, "What the Armed Forces Taught Us About Integration,'' Coronet (June 1960). 

reprinted in the Congressional Record, vol. 106, pp. 11564-65. 101Press Conference, 21 Jan 59, Public Papers of the Presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1959, p. 122; sec 

also Washington Post January 28, 1959. 
A NEW ERA BEGINS 499 

The controversy over schools for dependents demonstrated the limits of 

federal intervention in the local community on behalf of the civil rights of servicemen. Before these limits could be breached a new administration would have 

to redefine the scope of the Defense Department's power. Nevertheless, the 

armed forces had scored some dramatic successes in the field of race relations by 

1960. Some five million servicemen, civilians. and their dependents were proving the practicality of integration on the job, in schools, and in everyday living. 

Several writers even suggested that the services' experience had itself become a 

dynamic force for social change in the United States. 102 The New York Times's 

Anthony Lewis went so far as to say that the successful integration of military 

society Jed to the black crusade against discrimination in civilian society. ~ 

Others took the services' influence for granted. as Morton Puner did when he 

observed in 1959 that "the armed services are more advanced in their race relations than the rest of the United States. Perhaps it is uniquely fitting that this 

should be so, that in one of the greatest peacetime battles of our history. the 

armed forces should be leading the way to victory.' '

104 

As such encomiums became more frequent, successful integration became a 

source of pride to the services. Military commanders with experience in Korea 

had, according to Assistant Secretary of Defense Hannah, universally accepted 

the new order as desirable, .conceding that integration worked "very well" 

despite predictions to the contrary. 10) Nor was this attitude limited to military 

commanders. for there had been considerable change in sentiment among 

senior defense officials. Citing the major economies realized in the use of maopower and facilities, Secretary Wilson reponed to President Eisenhower in 

March 195 5 that the results of integration were encouraging: 

Combat effectiveness is increased as individual capabilities rather than racial designations determine assignments and promotions. Economics in manpower and funds are 

achieved by the elimination of racially duplicated facilities and operations. Above all, 

our national security is improved by the more effective utilization of military personnel, 

regardless of race . 106 

In other reportS he expatiated on this theme, explaining how integration cut 

down racial incidents in the services and improved "national solidarity and 

strength." 107 After years of claiming the contrary, defense officials were justifying integration in the name of military efficiency. 

I02Sce Fred Richard Bahr, "The Expanding Role of the Department of Defense as an Instrument of Social 

Chan~c" (Ph.D. dissertation. George Washington University, February 1970), ch.III. 

IO As quoted, ibid .. J>. 87. 104 Monon Puner. " Integration in the Army." The New Leader 42 (January 12, 1959). 

IO)Extracted from an interview given by Hannah and published in U.S. News and World Report 35 (Oc· 

tobcr 16, 1953):99. Sec also Ltr, Lt Col L. Hill, Chief, Public Info Div, CINFO. to Joan Rosen, WCBS Eye on 

New York. 17 Apr64, CMH Mise 291.2 Negroes. 106SemiamJIIal Report of the Secretary of Defe11se, january !-june 30, 1954 (Washington: Governmcnr 

Priming Office, 1955). pp. 21-22. 1070 ffice of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Manpower, "Advances in the Utilization of Negro Man· 

power: xtrae~s From Official Reports of the Secretary of Defense, 19ti7-1961." The quotation is from 

Secretary Wilson's report, 10 Dec 53. 
500 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Certainly racial incidents in the armed forces practically disappeared in the 

immediate post-integration period, and the number of complaints about onbase discrimination that reached the Pentagon from individual black servicemen 

dropped dramatically. Moreover, supporting Secretary Wilson's claim of national solidarity, major civil rights organizations began to cite the racial experiences of the armed forces to strengthen their case against segregated 

American society. Civil rights leaders continued to press for action against 

discrimination outside the military reservation, but in the years after Korea their 

sense of satisfaction with the department's progress was quite obvious. At its national conventions in 195 3 and 1954, for example, the NAACP officially praised 

the services for their race policy. As one writer observed, integration not only increased black support for the armed forces and black commitment to national 

defense during the cold war, but it also boosted the department's prestige in the 

black and white community alike, creating indirect political support for those 

politicians who sponsored the racial reforms. 108 

But what about the black serviceman himself? A Negro enlisting in the 

armed forces in 1960, unlike his counterpart in 1950, entered an integrated 

military community. He would quickly discover traces of discrimination, 

especially in the form of unequal treatment in assignments, promotions, and 

the application of military justice, but for a while at least these would seem 

minor irritants to a man who was more often than not for the first time close to 

being judged by ability rather than race. 109 It was a different story in the civilian 

community, where the black seviceman's uniform commanded little more 

respect than it did in 1950. Eventually this contrast would become so intolerable 

that he and his sympathizers would beleaguer the Department of Defense with 

demands for action against discrimination in off-base housing, schools, and 

places of public accommodation. 

108Bahr. ''The Expanding Role of the Department of Defense.'· pp. 86- 87. 10'>Ginzberg, The Negro Potential, p. 90. 
CHAPTER 20 

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 sevicemen both in communities adjacent to bases 

at home and abroad and in the reserve components of the services in many pares 

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. 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. 

1

For discussion of charges of discrimination within the services, sec Ltrs, ASD (M) to Congressman Charles 

C. Diggs, Jr., 1) Mar and ) Sep 61; and the following Memos: Under SccNav for ASD (M), 16 Mar 62, sub: 

Discrimination in U.S. Military Services; Dcp SccAF for Manpower, Personnel, and Organization for ASD 

(M), 29JAar 62, sub: Alleged Racial Discrimination With the Air Force; Dcp Under SA (M) For ASD (M). 30 

Mar62, sub: Servicemen's Complaints of Discrimination in the U.S. Military. All in ASD (M) 291 .2. 
502 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940- 1965 

It would be a mistake to equate the notice given the persistent 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. " 2 While the services had always 

denied responsiblity 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. 

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 

publlc accommodation was established in adjacent communities by law or 

custom. 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. 4 The United States 

Commission on Civil Rights charged that black servicemen were often reluctant 

to complain to their superio.rs 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.~ 

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. 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 

2Roberc S. McNamara, The Essence of Security (New York: Harper & Row, 1972). p. 124. 

3)ames 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. Sec also Memo, Dcp ASD (Military Personnel Policy) for ASD (M). 19 Oct 62, sub: Forthcoming Conference With Representatives From CORE, ASD (M) 291 .2. 4Memo, lee Nichols (UP! reporter) for Sec De£, 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 sponsor~hip. 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. 

>u.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Civil Rights '63 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1963), p. 

206. 

6Mcmo, ASD (M) for Assr Legal Counsel to President, 7 Nov 61, sub: Racial Discrimination in the Armed 

Services, ASD (M) 291.2. 
LIMITED RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION 503 

CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS AT THE WHITE HOUSE. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy 

poses with (from left) Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wzlkins, Whitney M. Young, 

Jr., and A. Philt'p Randolph. 

run. 7 Congressman Cha.rles C. Diggs, 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. 8 

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.' '

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 

7

See transcribed taped interviews conducted by Nichols of the UP! with military and civilian personnel in 

the Charleston, S.C., area in March 1963, copies in the James C. Evans Collection, AMHRC. 8Ltr, Diggs to President, 27 Jun 62, co.py in Gesell Collection, John F. Kennedy Library. 

9 American Veterans Committee, ''Audit of Negro Veterans and Servicemen," 1960, p. 16, copy in CMH. 
504 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

rights leaders petitioned the President to end such federal support. 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? " 11 In this 

they failed to distinguish between the commander's proper response to what 

was illegal, for e?'ample prostitution, and what was still legal, for example, 

segregated housing. 

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, 

RobertS. 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? " 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. 

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 

10Lcadcrship 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. Sec also U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Freedom to the Free: A CetJtury of Emancipatio!J (Washington: Government Printing 

Office, 1963). pp. 158££. 11Baltimorc Su11. August 8, 1962 . On the particular problem in the Aberdeen area sec Tclg. President 

Kennedy to John Field, President's Cmtc on Equal Employment Opportunity, 22 Scp 61, copy in CMH. 

12Mcmo, SecDcffor ASD (MP&R) Designate, 27 Jan 61, ASD (M) 291.2 . 
LIMITED RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION 505 

civil rights fray. 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 

down played the civil rights issues involved. 

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 dme 

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 co 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. 14 

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 usc of federal marshals. •> 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. 

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." 16 On 6 March 1961 he signed Ex1

lThis discussion of Kennedy's civil rights position is based on Arthur M. Schlesinger, A Thousrmd Days 

(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965); Theodore C. Sorensen, Kmnedy (New York: Harper and Row, 1965); and 

the following oral history interviews in the J. F. Kennedy Library: Bcrl Bernhard with Harris Wofford. 29 Nov 

65. Roy Wilkins, 13 Aug 611, 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. Kumedy justice (New York: Atheneum. 1971); William G. Carlton, "Kennedy in 

History," in Perspectives on 20th Century America: Readings and Comt11en/ary, eel . Otis L. Graham. Jr. (New 

York: Dodd, Mead, 1973); Edwin Gurhman. IIYe Band of Brothers: A Memoir of Robert F. Kennedy (New 

York: Harper and Row, 197 1); Burke Marshall, Federation and Civil Rights (New York: Columbia University 

Press 1974). 1

4Quotcd from O'Connor's oral history interview with Hcsburgh, 27 Mar 66. 

I)For a critical interpretation of the Kennedy approach to enforcing the Court's decisions, sec Navasky's 

Kennedy justice, pp. 97-98. and Howard. Zinn, Postwar America, 194.5-1971 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Mcrrill, 

1973). ch. iv. 

16Prcss Conference, I Mar 61, Public Papers of the Presidents: john F. Kennedy, 1961, p. 137. 
506 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

ecutive Order 1092 5, which combined the committees on government contracts 

and employment policy into a single Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity chaired by the Vice President. 17 His order, he believed, specified sanctions "sweeping enough to ensure compliance." 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 s~le or lease of federal housing or any housing bought with loans from or insured by the federal government. 19 

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 The group regularly scrutinized the 

racial programs of the various departments, demanding reports and investigations of racial matters and insuring that die interests and criticisms of the administration were quickly disseminated at the operations level of the federal 

agencies affected. 21 

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. 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. 23 

1726 Federal Register 1977. 18Prcsidcnrial statement, 7 Mar 61, Public Papers of the Presidents: Kennedy, 1961, p. 150. Sec 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. 1

9Executive Order 11063. 20 Nov 62. 27 Federal Register 1152 7. 20Mcmo, Frederick G. DuHon. Spec Asst to President. for Secy of State ct al. , 31 Mar 61, and Memo, ASD 

(M) for Dutton (ca. 10 Apr 61), both in ASD (M) 291.2; Memo, Nicholas D. Katzcnbach for Vice President 

Elect. 23 Nov 64. Burke Marshall Papers, and lnterv. 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 depanmcm'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. 21Sec Memo, ASD (M) for Under SA eta!.. 7 Nov 61, sub: Minority Representation in Officer Procure· 

ment and Training, ASD (M) 291.2. :Sec also Memos. Wofford for Civil Rights Subcabinet Group. I~ Scp. 20 

Oct. and 10 Nov61. copies in CMH. 22Memo for Red, James C. Evans. 21 Jul61, sub: Meeting. Subcabinet Group on Civil Rights. Friday, July 

21. 1961 (Judge Jackson represented Mr. Runge); Ltr, SecDef to Any Gen, 23 Jun 61; both in ASD (M) 291.2. 23Civil Rights Subcabinet Group, Notes on Meeting of 16 Jun 61; Ltr. Spec Asst to Postmaster Gcn to 

James C. Evans, 26 Jan 62; Memo, Evans for Spec Asst to ASD (M). James W. Plan, 20 Mar 62; Memo, Harris 

Wofford for Subcabinet Group. 30 Jan 62 . Copies of all in CMH. 
LIMITED RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION 507 

The existence of this group, with its surveys, questions, and 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. 24 

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 Righ ts was continually investigating the services, 

probing allegations of discrimination against black servicemen and evaluating 

the role of the department in community race relations. 2

) 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. 

26 

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 

subj ected 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. 27 In March 1961, civil rights 

24Memo for Red, James C. Evans. 21 Jul 6 1, sub: Meeting, Subcabinet Group on Civil Rights, Friday. July 

21, 1961 (Judge Jackson represented Mr. Runge), ASD (M&P) 291.2 . 2)See, for example, Ltr. Chmn. Commission on Civil Rights. to SecDcf. 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 ol the Depanmem of Defense: Ltr, Yarmolansky to Berl I. Bernhard, Stati01r, U.S. Common C1v1l 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 

inCMH. 26U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. ' 'The Services and Their Relations With the Community." 17 Jun 63 . 27

For examples of DOD repom submincd to the White House on this subject, sec Memo, ASD (M) for 

Harris Wofford, 15 Nov 61, and idem for Jlrank D. Reeves, Spec Asst to President, 29 Jun 61 . For examples of 
508 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

assistants on the President's staff inquired about the number of Negroes on the 

Defense Department's military and civilian screening boards. 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. 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. 30 

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 Civii Rights Leadership Conference submitted to the White House in August 1961.31 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 rhe 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 alsoY 

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 

White House interest in these rcporrs. sec James C. Evans. OASD (M), Notes on Civil Rights Subcabinet 

Gro~~ Meeting, 2 Feb and 2 Mar62. All in ASD (M) 291.2. 2 Memo, Yarmolinsky for Runge, 13 May 61; Memo, ASD (M) for SA et al., 16 Mar 61, sub: Personnel 

Screening Boards; both tn A:S1J (M) 291.2 . 29Memo, Frank D. Reeves, Spec Asstto President, for SecDcf. Attn: Adam Yarmolinsky, 19 Apr61, copy 

inCMH. 

30Ltr, Harris Wofford to ASD (M), 18 Sep 61; Memo for Red, James C. Evans. 25 Sep 61, sub: Negro 

Naval Personnel; Informal Memo, Evans for Runge, 22 Sep 61, s~me sub. All in ASD (M) 29 I .2. 

31Composed of representatives of some fifty civil rights groups under the chairmanship of Roy Wilkins of 

the NAACP. the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights presemed to Presidcm Kennedy a list of proposals for 

executive action to end tederally supported segregauon. See U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Freedom to the 

Pree, p. 129. 

32Mcmo, Dutton for Yarmolinsky, 26 Oct 61, copy in ASD (M) 291.2 (22 May 61). 
LIMITED RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION 509 

PRESIDENT KENNEDY AND PRESIDENT ALLESSANDRI OF CHILE review an all-white 

honor gttard unit, White House, 1962. 

elaborated on the incident during his first cabinet meeting, asking each 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?" 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. 34 

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 

HMcmo, SecDcf for ASD (M) . 13 Mar 6 1, ASD (M) 291.2. 

mo, ASD (M) for SecDcf. 14 Mar 61, sub: Ceremonial Units and Honor Guard Details, ASD (M) 

291.2. 
510 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

the [McNamara] memorandum. " 3

) 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. 36 

The Department of Defense, 1961-1963 

The White House appro:ach 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-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. 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. 39 

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 

Informal Memo. Evans for Judge Jackson, 14 Mar 61, sub: Ceremonial Units and Honor Guard Details. 

Remark repeat<:d by ASD (M) in his Memo for SecDcf. 14 Mar 61 , same sub. Both in ASD (M) files. 

36The Coast Guard incident in particular seems co have impressed Washington. It was cited by Mitchell, 

Wilkins, and Hcsburgh 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 Sccy of Treas, 21 Mar 61, sub: Coast Guard Academy, and Theodore Eliot (Spec ASSt to Secy of 

Trcas) for Richard N. Goodwin (ASS! 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. 

371ntcrv, Dennis O'Brien with Roswell L. Gilpatric, 5 May 70, in J. F. Kennedy Library; sec also Interv, 

Bernhard with Wofford. 

38Memo, Spec ASSt to SccDef 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";copicsofbothin CMH. 

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 conrracr compliance officers tO scrutinize its vast purchasing 

program, insuring compliance with Exectivc Order 10925. See Ltr, Adam Yarmolinsky ro author, 22 Nov 74, 

CMH files. 
LIMITED RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION 511 

Services Organization, and even the racial rule of 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 Mtlitary Reservation 

In the first of these directives, which was derived from President Kennedy's 

executive order on equal employment opportunity,

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.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. 

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.

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 

4

0orhc Office of the Secretary of Dcfe·nse also issued several other statements implementing sections of Ex· 

ecutive Order 10925: see DOD Dir 1125.4. 2 Jan 62, and OSD Admin lnstr No. 31. 13 July 62, both in SD 

files. 

41Memo, SecDef for Secys of Military Departments et al., 28 Apr 61, sub: Military and Civilian Employee 

Recreational Organizations, copy in ASD (M) 291.2. 

42Ltr, Runge to Hill, 14 Jun 61; Memo. Runge for Under SecAF, 28 Jan 61. sub: Military and Civilian 

Elnployce Recreational Organizations both in ASD (M) 291.2. 
512 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Defense on them?" 43 Runge's 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.

44 

With the effect of a stone dropped into water, the implications of the antidiscrimination memorandum continued to ripple outward. The commander of 

Brockley 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.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 on e 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. 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. 47 

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 qpinion, not consonant with the clear intent of the 

President's memorandum. " 48 Y armolinsky 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 sears. The White House 

reply was postponed until after the passage of the foreign aid bill, but the Air 

Force eventually received 1 .. .)tice to proceed along these lines. 49 

On 19 June 1961 De:->uty 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 

43Ltr, Bernhard to Runge, 6 Jul 6 t, ASD (M) 291.2. 44Ltr, Runge tO Bernhard, 17 Jul 61, with attached Handwritten Note, signed SSJ (Stephen Jackson], 13 

Jul61, ASD (M) 291.2. 4)Ltr, Hill to Runge, 26 Jul61; Memo, ASD (M) for SccAF, 25 Sep 61, sub: Purchase and Sale of Baseball 

Tickets at Brooklcy AFB; both in ASD (M) 353.8. 46Memo, R.C. Gilliat for Banimo, 31 Jul61, attached to Draft L[[, Runge to Hill, ASD (M) 353.8. 

47Memo, RTA [Ro?ertT. Andrews) for FAB (Frank A. Banimo), 1 Aug 61, ASD (M) 353.8. 

48Memo, Yarmolinsky for Dutton, 4 Aug 61 , sub: President's Memorandum of 18 April 1961, ASD (M) 

291.2 (22 May 61). 49Noce, signed, "MB," 16 Aug 6i, 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). 
LIMITED RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION 513 

the department nearer the uncharted 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.' '

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. H 

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. 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. 

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 

)0Memo, ASD (M) for SccDef. 22 May 61, sub: Availability of Facilities to Military Personnel, ASD (M) 

291.2. 

) 1Memo, Dcp Sec De£ for Service Secys, 19 Jun 61, sub: Availability of Facilities w Military Personnel, SD 

291.2. For various comments on the draft memo, see the following Memos: Vance and Runge for SccDef, ~ 

)un 61; ASD (M) for Dcp Sec De£, 16 Jun H, sub: Availability of Facilities to Military Personnel; Dcp SecDcf 

for Service Sccys, 5 }un 61. same sub; SecAF for Dep SecDe£. 13 Jun61, same sub. All in ASD (M) 291.2 (22 

May61). 

) 2Imerv, author with James C. Evans, I) Nov 72, CMH files. 
514 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

process of law in cases growing out of the enforcement of local 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. 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. 

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. 

54 

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 

HMemo, 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. 

)

4

Memo for Red, ASD (P), 23 Mar 60; Memo, Dep Chief, NavPers, for Assr 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, sec 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. 
LIMITED RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION )1) 

demonstrations.~~ The secretary's office reacted quickly to the incidents. A 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.' 6 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.'' 57 

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. 8 

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.)9 The department's general counsel was even more specific, 

saying that a prohibition against picketing would not conflict with the department's antidiscrimination policies and could be lawfully imposed by the services. "Indeed," he believed, "the role of the military establishment in our 

society required the impositio.n of such a limitation on the off-duty activities of 

service personnel."60 Blessed by such authority, the 1960 prohibition against 

participation in civil rights demonstrations remained in effect for more than 

three years. 61 

))Memo, ASD (M) for SecDef, 18 Jul 61, sub: Use of MiUtary Pol.ice 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 Ceo files, J. F. Kennedy Library. 

)

6Memo, ASD (M) for SecDcf, 18 Jul 61, sub: Usc of Military Police .. . , ASD (M) 291.2. 

HMemo, Dep Under SA for Counselor, OASD (M), 12 Jan 62, sub: Off-Base Racial Discrimination in the 

Fort Hood Area. ASD (M) 291. 2. 

)

8Memo, Vance and Rungcfor SecDef, 5 Jun 61, ASD (M) 291.2. 

)9Ltr, ASD (M) to John de J. Pemberton, Jr., Exec Dir, American Civil Liberties Union, 31 Jul63; Memos 

for Red, OSD Counselor, 26 Apr 61 and 9 Jul63. All in ASD (M) 291.2 (16 Jul63). 60Memo, General Counsel for ASD (M). 15 Jun 62, sub: PicKeting by Members of the Armed Forces, copy 

inCMH. 61See 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 In· 
516 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE MeN AMARA 

Such restrictions could not last 

much longer. Given the civil rights 

temper of the times-1963 witnessed 

the mammoth march oo 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 demon~trations, 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. 62 

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 t o 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.' '

63 

The fourth major memorandum on racial matters outlined the department's 

application of Executive Order 11063 on housing. Racial discrimination in offbase housing had become perhaps the chief complaint of black servicemen who 

volvement of Air Force Personnel in Local Civil Disturbahces. SecAF files; Ltr, Under SecNav 10 ]esse H. 

Turner, 6 Oc161, copy in CMH. See also Ltr, Adam Yarmolinsky to Adam C. Powell, 30 Oct 63, SO 291.2 

(14J.ul63). 6 Memo, SecOef for Secys of Mil Depts et al., 16jul63, SO files; see also New York Timts, july 16, 17, 

20, 22, 28, and 30, 1963. 63Msg, USCINCEUR 10)CS, 201256Z Aug 63; Msg,JCS 2190 10 CINSCO e1 al. (info copies 10 Service 

Chiefs of Staff, CINCAL, ASO [M], and ASO [PA]), 221630Z Aug 63. 
LIMITED RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION 517 

were further incensed by many 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.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 ch~nge by actions that are within the control of the military 

departments.' '

65 

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. 66 

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 housingY 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. 

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 

64omaha World Herald, August 17. 1962 ; sec also Memo, Adam [Yarmolinsky] for L. White, 7 Scp 62. 

Lee White Collection, j. F. Kennedy Library. 65Memo, ASD (M) for ASSt Legal Counsel to President, 7 Nov 61, sub: Racial Discrimination in the Armed 

Services, ASD (M) 291.2. 

66Memo, Jackson for Dep ASD, Family Housing-OASD (l&L), 8 Feb 63, sub: Implementation of EX 

11063, Equal Opportunity in Housing. copy in CMH. 

67Mcmo, SecDcf for SA et al., 8 Mar 63. sub: Non-Discrimination in Family Housing; Memo, ASD (l&L) 

for Dcp ASD (Family Housing), 8 Mar 63; copies of both in ASD (M) 291.2 . The quote is from the latter 

document. 
518 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

to linger in the armed forces. A 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 11ny appearance of timidity courted antagonism 

from another quarter. 

From the beginning the new administration found itself criticized by civil 

rights organizations, includiing the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, for not 

moving quickly against segregated National Guard units. 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.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. 70 

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. 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 

68Sce 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. 69Memo for Red. James C. Evans, OASD (M). 17 Jul 61, sub: Mr. Runge Receives NAACP Delegation. ASD (M) 291.2. 

70washington Post, July 28. 196 1. 71Ltr, 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 . 
LIMITED RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION 519 

in a federal status. Furthermore, withdrawal of federal recognmon or withholding federal funds as a means of bringing about integration, though l~gally 

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. 72 Noting instances of recent progress and citing legal restrictions against forcing state compliance, McNamara endorsed the policy of encouraging voluntary compliance. 

73 

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 

pares 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 d ecline in the strength of some units. 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. ~ 

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 

72Ltrs, Runge to Murray Gross, 19 Jul and 29 Nov 61. ASD (M) 291.2, and n.d. (ca. Nov 61), copy in Wofford Collection,}. F. Kennedy Library. 7

'Lrr, Sec De£ to Rep. Carl Vinson of Georgia, Chmn, House Armed Services Cmte, 5 Aug 61, reprinted in 

Ap(lcndix to CongreJJional Record, 87th Cong .. 1st sess .. vol. 107, p. A6589. 

74 ACofS (Reserve Components) Summary Sheet. II Feb 57. sub: Race Issue in Armory Debate. copy in 

DCSPER 291.2. 

7

)DCSPER Summary Sheet, 6 Apr 56, sub: Policy for Reserve Training Assignments of Obligated NonCaucasian Personnel of the Ready Reserve Who Reside in Segregated Areas. DCSPER 291 .2. 
520 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

received for such active duty, they had the opportunity to gain 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.' '

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.'' 

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. 77 

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 

76Mcmo, Dcp SecDcf for Under Secys, 3 Apr 62, sub: Compliance With E.O. 9981 in the Army, Navy, 

Air Force, and Marine Corps Reserves, in SO files. The secretary's memo was distributed to the commands; 

see, for example, Memo, TAG forCINCARPACcral., 15 May62 (TAG 291.2 / 15 May62). 770ffice 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. 
LIMITED RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION 521 

and discriminatory practices existed "in varying degrees" at 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 dispro.f)ortionate 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. 78 

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. " 79 It confirmed the general assessments of the AntiDefamation 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. 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. 

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 

78Ltr, Diggs to SecAF. 7 Jul60; see also Memo. Dir, AF Legis Liaison, for Spec ASS! for Manpower, Person· 

nel, 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. 

79U.S·. Commission on Civil Rights. Civil Rights '63, pp. 173-85. The quotation is from page 185. 80See, for example, Morron Puner, "The Armed Forces: An !meg ration Success Story," Anti-Defamation 

League Bulletin, Nov 62, pp. 3, 7; and American Veterans Committee, "Audit of Negro Veterans and Ser· 

vicemen," 1960. 
522 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

enlistees 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 t he 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. 81 

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 

TABLE 13-BLACK STRENGTH IN THE ARMED FORCES FOR SELECTED YEARS 

(In Percentage) 

Army Navy Marine Corps 

Enlisted Enlisted Enlisted 

Year Men Officers Men Officers Men Officers 

1949. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 12.4 1.8 4.7 0.0 2.1 0.0 

1954. 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 13.7 3.0 3.6 0.1 6.5 0.1 

1962.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 12.2 3.2 5.2 0.2 7.6 0.2 

Air Force 

Enlisted 

Men Officers 

5.1 0.6 

8.6 1.1 

9.2 1.2 

81Memo, DepASD (Special Studies and RequirementS) for ASD (M), 16 Jul63. 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 reproduc~d from DOD sources. 
LIMITED RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION 

T hBLE 14- ESTIMATEO PERCENThGE DISTRIBUTION OF DRhFT·AGE MALES IN U.S. 

POPULATION OY AFQT GROUPS 

(Based on Preinduction Examination. 19)9- 1962) 

Group 

1 .............•..•...•........ 

II ...... . .. ... ......... . .... . . 

Ill. ... . . ....... ........ . ..... . 

IV .. .... . .. •..... ...• ......... 

v .... .. ... ......... ..... .. .. . 

White 

11.8 

31.3 

31.9 

19.0 

6.0 

Nonwh ite 

0.3 

2.6 

15.0 

40.1 

42.0 

523 

economic and related environmental handicaps, low aptitude scores certainly explained the contrast in disqualification rates (Tables 15 and 1.6). 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. 

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. 

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 

ThBLE 15-RATE OF MEN DISQUAUFIED FORSERVICEIN 1962 

(In Percentage) 

Cause 

Medical and other .. . ........... . 

Me mal test failure . .. . .. . . . ... . . . 

Total ..........•....... .. . 

White 

21.8 

8.4 

30.2 

Nonwhite 

10. 1 

50.6 

60.7 
524 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES. 1940-1965 

for them (Tables 18 and 19). In 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 

TADLE 16- REJECfiON RATES FOR fA ILURF.TO PIISS 

ARMED FORCES MENTAL TEST. 1!)62 

Number Failed M~mal Test 

Ar~ 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, 

MassachuseltS, 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 

13lack ....................... . ... 9.563 4,255 44.5 

Third Army: Alabarr.a, 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, lllinois, 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, 

Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, 

Washington 

\'<lhitc ........ •................. 41,459 5,007 12.1 

Black .... . .. . .... . .............. 2,112 657 31.1 
LIMITED RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION 525 

uniform, 40 percent of the blacks and 12 percent 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 deT IIBLE 17 -NONWIIITE INDUCTIONS liND FIRST ENLISTMENTS. FISCAL YEIIRS 9~ 3-19621 

FiS<al To ~ I Percent Nonwhite 

Year Accessions DOD Army Navy 

(000) 1 

lnduetccs1 Enlistees 

19H . ........... 886. 1 12.8 14.7 13.4 4.3 

1954 ..... . ...... 576.3 10.0 9.9 13.0 4.0 

1955 ........ . ... 622.6 10.6 8.8 12.7 9.0 

1956 ...... .... • . 481.9 11.2 10.3 

·~ ·· 9.~ 

1957 ..... . ...... 456.7 9.1 10.8 9.3 3.6 

1958 .. . . .... . ... 367. 1 7.9 13.2 6.4 2.8 

1959 ..... • . ..... 392.0 7. 1 lOA 8.1 2.4 

1960 ... . .. ..... . 389.4 8.1 12.3 8.4 3.0 

1961 . .... . .... . . 394.7 8.2 14.4 8.2 2.9 

1962 ...... . ..... ~18.6 9.7 15.3 9.0 4.1 

Total. ....... 5.085.4 9.9 12.3 10.3 4.9 

1

1ncludes inductions and male "non-prior service" enlistments into the Regular components. 1

The Army was the only service drahing men during this decade. 

Marine 

Corps 

8.0 

7.8 

5.4 

10.6 

9.5 

5.1 

5.0 

7.9 

5.9 

6.5 

7.4 

T /IDLE 18- 0tSTRIOUTION OF ENLISTED Pt:RSONNEL IN EliCH MlljOR 0CCUPIITION, 1956 

Percentage Disuibuaion by AFQT Groups 

Occupation 1&11 111 

Electronics ........... • .... • .... • ..... 60.3 31.4 

Other technical ........ .. . ...... • ..... 57.9 30.7 

Admin. & clerical ............. .. • ..... 51.5 37.4 

Mechanics & repairmen ................ 37 .6 43.8 

Crafts ...... . ........................ 30.0 44 . 1 

Services ............................. 21.5 43.3 

Ground combat ... ······ ··· ······ ·· .. 24.5 37 .I 

TIIBLH I9-0ccuPIITJONIILGROUP DtSTRIBU1'tON BY RACE. Au. DOD. 1962 

Air 

Force 

II. I 

11.9 

13.5 

12.2 

9.7 

7.1 

<5.5 

8.4 

9. 5 

8.6 

10.4 

IV 

8.3 

11 .4 

II. I 

18.6 

25 .9 

35.2 

38.4 

Total Percent 

Occupational Group Percentage Distribution of Negroes in 

Negroes White Each Group 

Ground combat ............. 23.7 15.0 14.3 

Elecrronics . .. ............ .• . 7.0 14 .9 4.7 

Othertechnical .............. 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 
526 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940- 1965 

signed to equalize opportunities (Table 20). These policies had brought about 

an increasing proportion of Negroes in white collar skills as well as in ground 

combat skills. 

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, 

TABLE 20-0CCUPi'ITIONAL GROUP DISTRIBUTION OF ENLISTED PERSONNEL 

BY LENGTH OF SERVICE AND RACE 

12-20 

Occupational Group 0-4 Years 4-8 Ycars 8-12 Years Years 

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.S 

Electronics ......... . •...... . ... 14.1 S.6 19.7 10.3 IS.6 8.1 14.2 6.7 

Other technical ... .. . •.... . ..... 7 .s 7. 1 7.3 7.0 7.8 6.8 8.6 6.1 

Admin. & clerical .... . .... •. . . .. 18.3 22.3 17.5 22.6 19.6 22.0 22.0 18.5 

Mechanics ..................... 23.9 12.8 29.6 20.5 28.9 16.2 24.2 15.1 

Crafts . . .......... . . •.. . . •..... 5.3 4.0 6.9 7.4 7.7 6.8 8.8 7.2 

Services . . ..... ..... •.... •..... 10.6 15.5 9.2 15 .1 10.8 22.3 12.3 31.9 

Over 20 Y cars 

White Black 

8.4 12.S 

10.5 3.6 

7.3 s.o 

24. 5 18.7 

29.1 13.6 

8.6 6. 1 

11.7 40.4 

T ABI.E 21-PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF NAVY ENLISTED PERSONNEL BY RACE. AFQT GROUPS ANO 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 0 • • • •••• 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 

1

Excludes personnel not classified by occupation, such as recruits and general duty seamen. 
LIMITED RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION. 527 

mainly stewards, commissarymen, and the 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. 

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 rela:ted 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 m ental 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. 

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. 82 Such answers were clearly 

T ABLE 22- PERCENT AGE DISTRIBUTION OF BLACKS AND W HITES BY PAY GRADE. ALL DOD, 1962 

Grade 

Officers 

0 - 1 [0 0 - 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 . 0 0 0 0 . 0 0 0 0 . 0 0 0 0 0 0. 0 0 0 • • 0 0 

0 - 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 •• 0 0 0 0 . 0 0 0 • • 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0. 0 0 0 

0-4 00 0 0 •••••••• 0 • • •• 0 • • • 0 •• • •• 00 000 0 0 0 • • • 0 

~ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 . 0 0 0 0 . 00 0 • • 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 • • 0 0 

0-6 to 0 - 10 ............... . ... . ...... . ... . . 

Total . .......... . . . .............. . . . . . . . 

Enlisted Men 

E-1 wE-3 . ... . •. . .. •. .. . . . . . .. . ..... . . . .. . . 

E- 4 . ... . ..... . •.. . . . . ... . . . . .. .... .. •...... 

E-~ ...... . .. . . . . .. . . ....... . . . . . . .. . •.. . . .. 

E-6 .. . . . .. .... •.. . . . . . . . . . . .. .. .. ... •.... . . 

E-7 to E-9 .. . . . .. . . ....................... . . 

Total . . . ...... . . •.. . .•.. . . •. •. .. ... . .. . . 

Black 

3~ 9 

47.7 

12 . 1 

4.0 

.3 

100.0 

4U 

23 .1 

20 .1 

8.2 

3.0 

100.0 

White 

34.5 

30.2 

18.0 

12 .0 

5.3 

100.0 

46.9 

19.6 

16.1 

10.0 

7. ~ 

100.0 

82

See. for example, the following Memos: Dep Under SA (Manpower) for ASD (M). 30 Mar 62 , sub: Ser· 

vicemen's Complaints of Discrimination in the U.S. Military; AF Dep for Manpower, Pers, and Organization 
528 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

TABLE 23- PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF NAVY ENliSTED PERSONNEL BY RACE. AFQT GROUPS. PAY GRADE. AND 

LENGTH OF SERVICE. 1962 

0-12 Years Over 12 Y cars 

Pay Grade 

White Negro White Negro 

AFQT Groups 1 & 11 

E-1 co E-3 • • 0 • • • • •••• ••••••• • ' . 50.0 50.4 0.1 0.5 

E-4 ••• ••••••••• • • 0 • • 0 ••• •••• • 0 22.5 21.8 1.0 5.3 

E-5 ..... .... ... . ... .. .. ... .... 17 .8 18.6 6.6 16.8 

E-6 •••• • •••••••••• • ' 0 ••••••••• 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 Ill 

E-1 to E-3 • • 0 •••••••••••••••••• 60.6 60.5 0.5 3.5 

E-4 ••••••• •••• • •• • ••• 0 ••• 0 • • • • 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 .. ....... ...... ..... . .I 16.5 6.0 

Total. .... . .. . . ... ... . . ..... 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 

•Less than .05 percent. 

unacceptable co civil rights leaders 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 problemY 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.84 

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 comfor 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). 

83Ginzberg, The Negro Potential, p. 90. 

84U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Civil Rights '63, pp. 210- 11. 
LIMITED RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION 529 

munity policies of the Department 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. " 8) 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. 

~Mcmo. Wofford for Evans, 2 Feb 62, Wofford Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library. 
CHAPTER 21 

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 

dido' t know enough.'' 1 

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 

1

Imcrv, author with McNamara, telecon of II May 72, CMH files. 
EQUAL TREATMENT AND OPPORTUNITY REDEFINED 531 

several shades of opinion, and 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, chat ranged from a 

few people who wanted for a number of reasons co 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 offlimits sanction was a neglected and obvious weapon which ought to be invoked 

at once. 2 Nevertheless, these various views tended to coalesce into a series of 

mutually exclusive arguments that can be analyzed. 3 

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. Y armolinsky and his colleagues argued that racial discrimination, particularly discrimination in housing and public accommodations, created a 

serious morale problem among black GI's, a contention strongly supported by 

the recent Civil Rights Commission findings. While the services had always 

denied responsibility for combating discrimination outside the military reserva2Ltc, Alfred B. Fitt to author, 22 May 72, CMH files. 

3Thc following summary of opinions is based upon (1) Intcrvs: author with McNamara, II May 72, 

Gerhard A. Gesell, 13 May 72, Robcn E. Jordan III, 7 Jun 72, James C. Evans, 4 and 22 Mar 72; O'Brien with 

Gilpatric, ~May 70; USAF with Zucken, 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 co DASD 

(CR), 20 Jut 70; ASD (M) to Congressman Charles C. Diggs, Jr., 1~ 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 Yar· 

molinsky, 31 Mar 61. Copies of all in CMH. Sec also Adam Yarmolinsky, The Military Establish1llenl: Its Impacts in A1llerica,JSociety (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), p. ~ I. 
532 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

cion, these 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. 

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 ADAM Y ARMOLINSKY 

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 hearcs 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 the'se 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 
EQUAL TREATMENT AND OPPORTUNITY REDEFINED 533 

}AMES EVANS 

businessmen, would pit the administration against powerful congressmen, 

calling 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.'' 

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 illadvised 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.' '

4 

4

lnccrv, author with Evans, 4 Mar 72. 
534 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Runge and the rest were professional manpower managers who had a 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.~ 

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 Depar.tment. 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, 6 but it would take something more than their eloquent words to bring 

about change. 

Y armolinsky 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 com-

>usAF Oral Hist lntcrv with Zuckcrr, Apr 73; lnrcrv, O'Brien with Gilpatric, 5 May 70. 

6Ltr, Yarmolinsky to author, 30 May 72, CMH files. 
EQUAL TREATMENT AND OPPORTUNITY REDEFINED 535 

mit tee of independent citizens to investigate and report on the situation. 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. 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.' '

9 This decision launched the Department of 

Defense into one of the most important civil rights battles of the 1960's. 

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. 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.) 11 

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 

7Not everyone supporting the idea of an investigatory comminee was necessarily an advocate of Yarmolin· 

sky'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 in· 

tegration. 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. 

Sec lnterv, author with Davenport, 31 Oct 71. 8Ltr, Diggs to McNamara, 24 Aug 61; Ltr. ASD (M) to Diggs. 5 Scp 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. 

91ntcrv, author with McNamara, II May 72. 

tOLtr, 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. 

11Mcmo, Yarmolinsky for Lee C. White, 26 Jul62, sub: Revocation of Executive Ordcr9981. SO 291.2. 
536 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

lacked the power of its predecessor to 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." 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 mak~up and guidelines. 13 

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. 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 dear, 

Gesell later noted, "that Y armolinsky 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." 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 currem 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. 16 

The citizens chosen for this delicate task, "integrationists all," 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. 18 Chairman Gesell was a Washington lawyer, 

educated at Yale, an acquaintance of Yarmolinsky's with whom he shared a 

12interv, author with McNamara, I I May 72: sec also Ltr, Yarmolinsky to author, 30 May 72. Yarmolinsky 

called the prcsidemial appointment an example of the Defense Department's borrowing the prestige of the 

White House. 1 )Memo, ASD (M) for Asst Legal Counsel to President, 7 Nov 61, sub: Racial Discrimination in the Armed 

Services, ASD (M) 291.2. 141nterv. author with Gesell, 3 Nov 74. CMH files. The Secretary of Defense met with the committee but 

once for an informal chat. 15Jnterv. author with Gesell, 13 May 72. 16Memo, Yarmolinsky for Vice President, 13 Mar 62, SD 291.2 . 17Memo, 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. 181n discussing the Yale connection in the Gesell Comminec, 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. 
EQUAL TREATMENT AND OPPORTUNITY REDEFINED 537 

close mutual friend, Burke Marshall, also from Yale and the head of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights J?ivision. Gesell always assumed that this friendship with Marshall explained his selection by the Kennedy administration for 

such a sensitive task. 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 Ill, of Yale College and Law 

School, as the committee's counsel. 

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. 20 

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 

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.' '

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. 

1

9Imerv, author with Gesell. 13 May 72. 

20Ltr, Young w Gesell, 27 Aug 62, Gesell Collection,}. F. Kennedy Library. 21

Ltr, Muse to Gesell, 26 Jan 63, Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library. 22Quoted by Gesell during interview with author, 13 May 72. 
538 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

At the 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. 23 

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. 24 

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. 2

) 

Most of the committee's work was done in a "shirt sleeve" atmosphere, as 

its chairman described it, with a staff of four people. 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. 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. 

The committee concluded from its investigations that serious discrimination 

against black servicemen and their families existed at home and abroad within 

23Memo, White for Dep Atty Gen. 23 Jan 63. copy in Lee C. White Collection, J. F. t<ennedy 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. 

24Ltr, Gesell to SecAF, 25 Oct 62, SccAF files. 2 )Interv, author with Gesell, 3 Nov 74. 

26Memo, Gesell for Cmre Members. 20 Nov 64, Gesell Collection,). P. Kennedy Library. 27The comminee's considerable probings were reflected in the Defense Department's files. Sec for example, Memo, SecDef for Secys of Mil Depts er 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; Lu. SecNav to Gesell, I 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 Lm, Chmn. President's Cmte, to SecAF, e Ocr 62, USAF, Report for President's Committee 

on Equal Opportunity in rhe 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, SccAF files; "Visit of Mr. Nathaniel Colley 

and Mr. John Sengstacke to 3d Marine Division," copy in CMH. Additionally, see also Ltr, Berll. Bernhard, 

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, to Gesell, 29 Jun 62, Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library. 
EQUAL TREATMENT AND OPPORTUNITY REDEFINED 539 

the services and in the civilian community, 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. " 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.' '

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 andrejected the idea of providing preferential treatment for Negroes to achieve better 

representation in the services and in the higher grades. 30 

Overrepresentation of black enlisted men in certain supply and food services 

was obvious. 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 ,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.' '

33 Gesell later concluded that the close social contact necessary aboard 

ship had been a factor in the Navy's slower progressY Whatever the reason, the 

Navy and Marine Corps fell statistically short of the other services in every 

category measured by the Gesell group. 

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 in28The 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 repon, which was reproduced in the Cot~greJJiot~al Record, 88th Cong., 1st sess .. vol. 

109, f,P· 14359-69. 

2 Ltr, Gesell to Under SccNav, 6 Feb 63. SecNav file 5420 (1179). GenRecsNav. 301ntcrvs, author with Gesell, 13 May 72 and 3 Nov 74. 31

Memo, Dep for Manpower, Personnel, & Organizalion, USAF, for SecAF, 25 Jan 63. sub: Meeting With 

President's Committee on Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces, SecAF files. 32Ltr, 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, 

GcnRecsNav 5420. 

HLtr, Under SccNav w Gesell, 8 Feb 63. SecNav file 5420 (1179), GenRecsNav. For examples of this exchange between the committee and the Navy, sec Ltrs, Gesell to Fay, 6 Feb 63. and Fay to Gesell, 3 May and 5 

)un 63, all in SecNav file 5350, GenRccsNav. 341nterv, author with Gesell, 3 Nov 74. 
540 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

viting black civilians to participate in USO dances and entertainments. 3) The 

committee also discussed discrimination in military police assignments, segregation in local transport and on school buses, and the commander's attitude 

coward interracial associations both on and off the military reservation. 

Despite its criticism of the imperfect application of service race 

policies-some servicewide, others confined to certain bases-the committee 

reported to the President that the services had made ''an intelligent and farreaching advance toward complete integration, and, with some variations from 

service to service, substantial progress toward equality of treatment and opportunity." 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. " 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 ocher empirical data, did not lend itself to more chan a superficial 

treatment of these subtle and stubborn, if unmeasurable, on-base problems. 

The committee believed that some of what appeared discriminatory was in 

reality the working of such fac tors 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 co morale and serve to keep 

before all servicemen the standard of conduct decreed by executive policy. 38 

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 relationHFor an cx~mplc of how an individual service was handling the USO and other on-base social problems. 

sec Memo. MaJ Ccn John K. Hester. ASSt VCofS. USAF. for SccAF, 26 Feb 63. sub: Antidiscrimination 

Policies. SccAFfilcs. Sec also "Initial Rpt." pp. 73-74. 

lG"Initial Rpt," p. 10. 

H lmcrv. author with Gesell. 3 Nov 74. 

}8" Jnitial Rpt." pp. 10- 11 , 30. 51. 
EQUAL TREATMENT AND OPPORTUNITY REDEFINED 541 

THE G ESELL COMMI'ITEE MEETS WITH THE PRESIDENT. Left to right: Laurence ]. 

Hewes Ill, Executive Secretary; Nathaniel S. Colley; Benjamin Muse; Gerhard A. 

Gesell,· President Kennedy; Whitney M. Young, Jr.; john H. Sengstacke; and 

Abe Fortas. 

ships. To this Whitney Young would answer that fine community relationships 

and racial injustice were not necessarily exclusive. 3

9 

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. 40 

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 

39Mcmo for Red. USAF Dep for Manpower. Personnel, & Organization, 14 Nov 62, sub: Meedng of the 

President's Committee on Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces, SecAF file 2426-62. 

40Mcmo, Dep for Manpower, Personnel. & Organization, USAF, for SccAF, 25 Jan 63, sub: Meeting With 

President's Committee on Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces, SccAF files. See also Memo for Red, 

Marine Corps Aide to SecNav, 30 jan 63, sub: Meeting With Navy-Marine Corps Representatives on Equal 

Opportunity, SecNav file 5420 (1179). GenRc:csNav. 
542 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

military efficiency. The 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.4 1 

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. 42 

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.' '

43 Gesell and 

Muse were particularly impressed by how local commanders, acting firmly but 

informally, could achieve swift breakthroughs. But actually, as the GesellYaung trip tO Pensacola demonstrated, often more than the base commander 

was involved in these drama.tic 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 

41 "Initial Rpt," p. 61. 42Intcrv, author with Gesell, 13 May 72. 

43Idem with Benjamin Muse, 2 Mar 73, CMH files. 
EQUAl TREATMENT AND OPPORTUNITY REDEFINED 543 

[to the President) of 1 June.' '

44 In a matter 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. ~ 

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.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. 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. 48 

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.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 bowlmg 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 m 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 

44Memo, Under SecNav for SecNav, 9 Apr 63. sub: Meeting With the President's Cmte on Equal Opportunit~ in the Armed Forces, SecNav file: 5420, GenRecsNav. 

• Ltr, DASD (Family Housing) to Chmn Gesell, 4 Jun 63. Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library. 

• 6Ltr, 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). GenRccsNav. 

47" Initial Rpt," p. 52. 48Imcrv, author with Gesell, 3 Nov 74. 

49" Intial Rpt," pp. 68-71 . 
544 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940- 1965 

subject. In all my trips I hinted at sanctions and base 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. 50 

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. 

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. " 52 

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. 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. 54 

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. 55 

. 5°tmerv, author with Gesell, 13 May 72. 

HMemo for Red , 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 . 52"1nitial Rpt, " p. 70. 53Ltr, Gesell to President Kennedy, 13 Jun 63. copy in CMH. 

1nterv , author with Gesell, 13 May 72. 55" Initial Rpt," p . II. 
EQUAL TREATMENT AND OPPORTUNITY REDEFINED 

The committee wanted responsibility for eliminating these color 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 antidiscrimination 

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. 6 

Reaction to a New Commitment 

The Gesell Committee's conclusion th:n discrimination in the community 

was tied to military efficiency meshed well with the civil rights philosophy of the 

l

6Ibid .. pp. 92-93. 
546 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

New Frontier. Responding to the committee's report, President Kennedy cited 

"the interests of national defense, national policy and basic considerations of 

human decency" to justify h is 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.~7 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.~ 8 

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. 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. " 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.61 

Despite the opposition to these recommendations, Fitt saw room for com, 

promise 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 

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; sec Memo. Yarmolinsky for White. 8 Jun 63. 

White Collection ,). F. Kennedy Library. 

)

8Mcmo. SccDef 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 SecDcf. 27 )un 63; both in ASD (M) 291.2. 

)9Mcmo, Dep Under SA (M) for SecDcf (ca. 10 Jul63), with service comments attached, copy in ASD (M) 

29 1.2. 

6°Memo, SecNav for ASD (M), 10 Jul63, sub: Report of the President's Committee on Equal Opportunity 

in the Armed Forces. SecNav file 5410, GenRecsNav. 

61 Memo, SecAF for ASD (M). 10 Jul63. sub: Air Force Response to the Gesell Committee Report, SecAF 

files. 
EQUAL TREATMENT AND OPPORTUNITY REDEFINED 

in 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 bot 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. 

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 ALFRED FliT 

547 

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. 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. 

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.' '

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.' ~ 

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 

621nterv, author with Gesell, 13 May 72. 63Jbid ., and with McNamara, II May 72. 

64Memo, McNamara for Burke Marshall (ca. 20 Jul63). Marshall Papers,}. F. Kennedy Library. 
548 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

some of 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.' '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. 

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 militaryfersonnel, (c) provide policy guidance and review policies, regulations and manuals o the military departments, and (d) monitor their performance 

through periodic reports and visits to field installations. 

2. In carrying out the fu.nctions 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) , 1ssue 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 equat 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 discrimmation cases arising within the United States. 66 

65Jdem for President, 24 Jul63, cop·y in CMH. 

66ooo Dir H20.36, 26 Jul63. 
EQUAL TREATMENT AND OPPORTUNITY REDEFINED 549 

After some thirty months in office, Robert McNamara had made a 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, co 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.67 

"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. 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.'' 

Not all the correspondents were racist or hysterical. Some thoughdul 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.69 

67 Alfred B. Fin thus characterized the opposition in his Remarks Before Civilian Aides Conference of the 

Secretary of Army. 6 Mar 64, DASD (CR) files. 

68Ltr to SecDef. 29 Jul 63. This letter and the two following arc typical of hundreds received by the 

secretary and filed in the records of ASD (M). 

69Ltr, 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. Sec 

also Ltrs. DASD (CR) roSen. Frank Moss. 16 Aug 63. and ASD (M) ro Congressman George Huddleston. 13 

Aug 63: ASD (M), "Straightening Out the Record," 19 Aug 63: Memo. DASD (CR) for General Counsel, 4 

Scp 63. sub: Use of the Off-Limits Power. All in DASD (CR) files. 
550 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES , 1940-1965 

Some defenders of the directive saw the whole controversy over sanctions as a 

red herring dragged across t he path of a genuine equal treatment and opportunity program. 70 During congressional debate on the directive, the use of offlimits 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.' '

71 

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. 

72 

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 Y armolinsky, 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 

7

0Ltr, Fitt w author, 22 May 72 . 11Cor1greu ional Record, 88th Cong .. 1st sess .. vol. 109, p . 143~0. 72Ibid .. pp. 13778-87, 14349- % . 
EQUAL TREATMENT AND OPPORTUNITY REDEFINED ))1 

this change. " 73 In line with these 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.' '

74 

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. 7 ) 

Their campaign came to naught because the new policy had its own supporters 

in Congress, 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. 

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. 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 

73Quotesarefrom ibid .. pp. 13778.13780, 14345-46, 14349, 14351, 14352. 

74 Ibid., Senate, 31 Jul63, pp. 13779, 13783. 

ncongressional letters critical of the directive can be found in DASD (CR) and SO files, 1963. See, for 

example. Lus, Fulbright to SecDef, 22 Aug 63, R. C. Byrd to SccDef, 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 t:he constitutionality of the directive and of Vinson's bill took place among department officials 

durin): 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; ASS! Gen 

Counsel (Manpower) for ASD (M), 4 Sep 63. All in ASD (M) 291.2. 

76Letters in support of the DOD Directive can be found in ASD (CR) (68A 1006) files, 1963. 

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. Sec Mary McGrory, "A Southern 

Hatchet Fell," Washington Slar, August 10, 1964. 
552 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

public demise robbed the traditionalists in the Department of Defense of a 

cherished excuse for inaction. 

The Gesell Comm£ttee: 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.'' 78 

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. 79 This informality masked the protracted negotiations that the 

committee conducted with the National Guard Bureau over the persistent exclusion of Negroes. It also maslked the solid investigation by individual committee 

members and the voluminous evidence gathered by the staff in support of the 

group's final report. 

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. 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 intro.duced by American servicemen. He suggested that off-limits sanctions should 

78The quote is from author's interview wirh Gesell on 13 May 1972. See also Lrr, Whire to Gesell, 8 Jan 64, 

and Memo, Gesell for Members of rhe Commirree, 26 Feb 64, both in Gesell Collecrion, J. F. Kennedy 

Library. 7

9Memo, Gesell for Members of rhe Committee, 26 Feb 64. 80Thc President's Committee on Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces, ''Final Report: Military Person· 

nel Stationed Overseas and Membership and Participation in the National Guard, November 1964" (hereafter 

cited as "Final Report"), copy in CMH. 
EQUAL TREATMENT AND OPPORTUNITY REDEFINED 553 

also be imposed in Germany but "only after consultation and on a basis of 

mutual understanding with German municipal authorities. " 81 

The committee wanted the recommendations on off-base discrimination 

contained in its initial repon: 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. " 82 Chairman Gesell later reported that 

when the segregated state guards were pressured they ''resisted like hell.' '

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.' '

84 

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. 85 

The committee stressed executive initiatives. It wanted the President to 

declare the integration of the National Guard in the national interest. It wanted 

81Ltr, Muse to Gesell, 23 Apr 64, Gesell Collection,). F. Kennedy Library. 82"Final Report," p. 12. 

83Imerv, author with Gesell, 3 Nov 74. 

84The Kennedy quote is from the author's interview with Gesell on n May 1972. The Justice Department 

quote is from Memo, Gordon A. Marrin (.Dept of Justice) for Burke Marshall, 26 Jul 63, sub: Proposed Gesell 

Cmte Rpt oo the National Guard. Marshall Papers, J. F. Kennedy Library. 85"Final Report," pp. 19-20. 
554 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

the Department of Defense to demand pertinent 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, 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. 

Chairman Gesell circulated a draft report containing these findings and 

recommendations among committee members in September 1964.87 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.' '

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. " 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. 90 

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. 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 

86Thc 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. 

87The draft was also sent for comment to the National Guard Bureau; sec Lrr. Chief, NGB, to Gesell, 13 

Nov 64, Gesell Collection,}. F. Kennedy Library. 88Memo, Gesell for Members of the President's Committee on Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces, 20 

Nov 64. The quotation is from Ltr, Yo·ung to Gesell, 23 Sep 64 . For the reaction of other members see, for example, Lm. Sengstacke to Gesell, 9 Oct 64, Muse to Gesell, 16 Sep 64. Fonas to Gesell, 29 Sep 64. All in 

Gesell Collection,]. F. Kennedy Library. 89Ltr, Gen Wilson, NGB, to GeseU, 13 Nov 64, Gesell Collection,]. F .. Kcnnedy Library. 

9°Ltr, President to SecDcf, 26 Dec 64, copy in CMH. 

91Jnterv, author with Muse, 2 Mar 73. 
EQUAL TREATMENT AND OPPORTUNITY REDEFINED 555 

and military efficiency. The committee's conclusions, logically derived from the 

connection between morale and efficiency, introduced a radically expanded concept of racial responsibility for the armed forces. 

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. 
CHAPTER22 

Equal Opportunity in the Military 

Community 

When Secretary McNamara issued his equ·al opportunity directive in 1963, 

all segregated public accommodations, schools, and even housing near military 

reservations became potential targets of the Department of Defense's integration drive. This change in policy was substantive, but the traditionalists who 

feared the sudden intrusion of the services into local community affairs and the 

reformers who later charged McNamara with procrastination missed the point. 

More than a declaration of racial principles, the directive was a guideline for the 

progressive application of a series of administrative pressures. Endorsing the 

Gesell Committee's concept of command responsibility, McNamara enjoined 

the local commander to oppose discrimination and foster equal opportunity 

both on and off the military base. He also endorsed the committee's recommendation for the use of economic sanctions in cases where voluntary compliance 

could not be obtained. By demanding the approval of the service secretaries for 

the use of sanctions, McNamara served notice that this serious application of the 

commander's authority would be limited and infrequent. He avoided altogether the committee's call for closing military bases. 

The secretary's critics overlooked the fact that no exact timetable was set for 

the reforms outlined in the directive, and actually several factors were operating 

against precipitate action on discrimination outside the military reservation. 

Strong sentiment existed among service officials for leaving off-base discrimination problems to the Department of Justice, and, as early reactions to the committee report revealed, the committee's findings did little to alter these feelings. 

More important, the inclination to postpone the more controversial aspects of 

the equal opportunity directive received support from the White House itself. 

Political wisdom dictated that the Department of Defense refrain from any 

dramatic move in the civil rights field while Congress debated the civil rights 

bill, a primary legislative goal of both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. "Avoid civil rights spectaculars" was the White House's word to the executive departments while the civil rights act hung fire. 1 

The lack of pressure by black servicemen and civil rights advocates lent itself 

to official procrastination. Civil rights organizations, preoccupied with racial 

unrest throughout the nation and anxious for the passage of new civil rights 

1

Quoted in Ltr, Fittro author, 22 May 72; see also !nterv, author with Jordan, 7 Jun 72. 
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE MILITARY COMMUNITY 557 

legislation, seemed to lose some of their intense interest in service problems. 

They paid scant attention to the directive beyond probing for the outer limits of 

the new policy. In the months following the directive, officials of the NAACP 

and other organizations shot off a spate of requests for the imposition of offlimits sanctions against certain businesses and schools and in some cases even 

whole towns and cities. 2 When Defense Department officials made clear that 

sanctions were to be a last, not first, resort and offered the cooperation of local 

commanders for a joint effort against local discrimination through voluntary 

compliance, the demands of the civil rights organizations petered out. ~ 

According to a 1964 survey of black servicemen and veterans, this group enjoyed military life more than whites and were more favorably disposed toward 

the equal opportunity efforts of the Department of Defense.4 They continued to 

complain, but the volume of their complaints was considerably reduced. One 

unsettling note: although fewer in number, the complaints were often 

addressed to the White House , the Justice Department, the civil rights organizations, or the Secretary of Defense, thus confirming the Gesell Committee's finding that black servicemen continued to distrust the services' interest in or ability 

to administer justice.~ 

The Secretary of Defense's manpower staff processed all these complaints. It 

dismissed those considered unrelated to race but forwarded many to the individual services with requests for immediate remedial action. Significantly, 

those involving the violation of a serviceman's civil rights off base continued to 

be sent to the Justice Department for disposition. Defense Department officials 

themselves adjudicated the hundreds of discrimination cases involving civilian 

employees. 6 

In the weeks and months following publication of the equal opportunity 

directive, official replies to the demands and complaints of black servicemen 

and their allies in the civil rights organizations continued to be carefully circumscribed. Whatever skepticism such restricted application of the Gesell 

recommendations may have produced among the civil rights leaders, the department found itself surprisingly free from outside pressure. It was able to set the 

2See Ltr, J. Francis Pohlhous, Counsel, Washington Bureau, NAACP, tO SecDef, 5 Aug 63. ASD (M) 

291.2; Tclg, NAACP Commanders to SecDef. DA IN 886952, ASD (M) 334 Equal Opportunity in Armed 

Forces (21 Jul63}; Ltr, Juanita Mitchell, President, Baltimore Branch, NAACP, to SecDef. 11 May 64, copy in 

CMH. See also New York Ti1!JCJ, July 23. 1963. 

3See Ltrs, DASD (CR} to J. Francis Pohlhous, 15 Aug and 6 Sep 63; Albert Fritz, Utah Branch, NAACP. 

29 Aug 63; and Juanita Mitchell, 18 Mar 64 . See also Lrr, DASD (Civ Pers, Industrial Relations, and Civil 

Rights} to Moses Newsom. Afro-American Newspapers, 2 Feb 65. Copies of all in CMH. 

4Charles Moskos, "Findings on American Military Establishment" (Northeastern University. 1967}, 

quoted in Yarmolinsky, The Miltiary EstablishmetJt, p. 343. 

}For many examples of these racial complaints and their disposition, see DASD (CR} files. 1963- 64, 

especially Access Nos. 68-A-1006 and 68-A-1033. 

6The Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower} prepared a monthly compilation of all discrimination 

cases in the Department of Defense involving civilian employees. Originally requested by then Vice President 

Lyndon Johnson in his capacity as chairman of the Presidem's Committee on Equal Opportunity in Employ· 

ment in June 1962. the reports were continued after the Gesell Committee disbanded. The report for 

November 1963, for example, listed 144 cases of "Contractor Complaints" investigated and ajudicated and 

159 cases of • 'In-House Complaints' ' being processed in rhe Department of Defense. See Memo, ASD (M} for 

SA et al., 20 Dec 63, ASD (M} 291.2. 
558 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

pace of its own reform and to avoid 'meanwhile a clash with either reformers or 

segregationists over major civil rights issues of the day. 

Creating a Civil Rights Apparatus 

The Defense Department could do little about discrimination either on or 

off the military reservation until it was better organized for the task. The 

secretary needed new bureaucratic tools with which to develop new civil rights 

procedures, unite the disparate service programs, and document whatever 

failures migh.t occur. He created a civil rights secretariat, assigning to his manpower assistant, NormanS. Paul, 7 the responsibility for promoting equal opportunity in the armed forces. Although racial affairs had always been considered 

among the manpower secretary's general duties, with precedents reaching back 

through the Personnel Policy Board to World War II when Asssistant Secretary 

of War John J. McCloy supervised the employment of black troops, McNamara 

now significantly increased these responsibilities. The assistant ·secretary would 

represent him "in civil rights matters," would direct the department's equal 

opportunity programs, and would provide policy guidance for the military 

departments, reviewing their policies, regulations, instructions, and manuals 

and monitoring their performance. 8 To carry out these functions, the Secretary 

of Defense authorized his assistant to create a deputy assistant secretary for civil 

rights.9 Again a precedent existed for the secretary's move. In January 1963 Paul 

had assigned an assistant to coordinate the department's racial activities. 10 The 

reorganization transferred the person and duties of the secretary's civilian aide, 

James C. Evans, to the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. 

The new organization was thus provided with a pedigree traceable to World 

War I and the work of Emmett J. Scott, u although Evan's move to the deputy's 

staff was the only connection between Scott and that office. The civilian aides, 

limited by the traditionally indifferent attitudes of the services toward equal opportunity programs, had been used to advise civilian officials on complaints 

from the black community, especially black servicemen, and to rationalize service policies for civil rights organizations. The new civil rights office, reflecting 

McNamara's positive intentions, was organized to monitor and instruct military 

departments. 

7Norman S. Paul succeeded Carlisle Runge as Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower) on 8 August 

1962. 

8DOD Dir 5120.36. 26 Jul 63. For an extended discussion of the functions of the Assistant Secretary of 

Defense (Manpower) and his civil right.s deputy, sec Memo, DASD (CR) for Mr. Paul. 21 Scp 65. sub: Policy 

Formulation, Planning and Action in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Civil Rights), 

26 July 1963-26 September 1965. ASD (M) 291.2. This significant document, a ptogress report on civil rights 

in the first two years of McNamara's new program, is an important source for much of the following discussion 

and will be referred to hereafter as Paul Memo. 9DOD News Release 1057-63, 29 Jul63. 10Memo, ASD (M) for DASD (Education) et a!., 23 Jan 63, sub: Coordination of All Matters Related to 

Racial Problems, ASD (M) 291.2. 11Evan's predecessors included Emmett ] . Scott, Special Assistant to the Secretary of War, 1917-19: 

William H. Hastie, Civilian Aide to rhe Secretary of War, 1940-43; Truman K. Gibson, 1944-46; and 

Marcus H. Ray, 1946-47. Evans left Army employ to join the staff of the Secretary of Defense in 1947. See 

Memo for Red, Counselor to ASD (M), 1 Mar62. ASD (M) 291.2. 
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE MILITARY COMMUNITY 559 

The civil rights deputy was a relatively powerless bureaucrat. He might investigate discrimination and isolate its causes, but he enjoyed no independent 

power to reform service practices. His substantive dealings with the services had 

to be staffed through his superior, the Assistant Secretary for Manpower, a man 

to whom equal opportunity was but one of many problems and who might well 

question new or aggressive civil rights tactics. Such an attitude was understandable in an official with little or no experience in civil rights matters and no dayto-day contact with civil rights operations. Norman Paul, whose experience was 

in legislative liaison, might also be especially sensitive to the possibility of congressional or public criticism. 12 Indicative of the assistant secretary's attitude 

toward his civil rights deputy was the fact that the position was reorganized and 

retitled, with some significant corresponding changes in function each time, a 

bewildering five times in ten years. 13 To add to the problems of the civil rights 

office, nine different men were to occupy the deputy's position, three of them 

in the capacity of acting deputy, in that same decade. 14 

The organization of the equal opportunity program of the Secretary of 

Defense was not without its critics. Some wanted to enhance the prestige of the 

equal opportunity program by creating a separate assistant secretary for civil 

rights. 15 Such an official, accountable to the Secretary of Defense alone, would 

be free to direct the services' racial activities and, they agreed, would also serve 

as a highly visible symbol to servicemen and civil rights advocates alike of the 

department's determination to execute its new policy. Others, however, 

defended the existing organization, arguing that racial discrimination was a 

manpower problem, and the number of assistant secretaries was fixed by law 

and the chance of congressional approval for yet another manpower position was 

remote. 16 

These organizational problems had yet to appear in July 1963 when at 

Yarmolinsky' s suggestion Secretary McNamara appointed Alfred B. Fitt the first 

civil rights deputy. Since 1961 the Army's Deputy Under Secretary for 

Manpower, Fitt had recently been on loan to the Office of the Secretary of 

Defense to coordinate the department's responses to the Gesell Committee. He 

was the author of the equal opportunity directive signed by McNamara, and his 

personal views on the subject, while consistent with those of Yarmolinsky and 

McNamara, were often expressed in more advanced terms. Going beyond the 

usual arguments for equal treatment based on morale and military efficiency, 

12Beforc assuming the manpower position, Norman Paul was the chief of legislative liaison for the Depart· 

ment of Defense. For a critique of the work of the ASD (M} incumbents in the racial field, sec O'Brien's inter· 

view with Gilpatric, 5 May 70, J. F. Kennedy Library. 13For a discussion of the effect of the proliferation of assistants in the manpower office, sec USAF oral 

history interview with Evans, 24 Apr 73. 

14The incumbents were Alfred B. Pitt, Stephen N. Shulman, Jack Moskowitz, L. Howard Bennett (acting}, 

Frank W. Render ll, Donald L. Miller, Curtis R. Smothers (acting}, Stuart Bwad (acting}, and H. Minton 

Francis. 

15This solution was still being recommended a decade later; see Department of Defense, "Report of the 

Task Force on the Administration of Military Justice in the Armed Forces," 30 Nov 72, vol. I, pp. 51, 112. See 

also lnterv, author with L. Howard Bennett (former DASD [CR)}, 13 Dec 73. CMH files. 

16Interv, author with Col George R. H. Johnson, Deputy, Plans and.Policy. DASD (Equal Opportunity), 9 

Aug 73, CMH files. 
560 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

ARRIVING IN VIETNAM. lOlst Airborne Division troops aboard the USNS General 

LeRoy Eltinge. 

Fitt referred to the black servicemen's struggle as a moral issue. He was glad, he 

later confessed, to be on the right side of such an issue, and he felt indebted to 

the positive racial policies of Kennedy and Johnson and their Secretary of 

Defense. 17 He quickly gathered around him a staff of like-minded experts who 

proceeded to their first task, a review of the services' outline plans called for in 

the secretary's directive. 18 

Although merely outlines of proposed service programs, the three plans submitted in July and August nevertheless reflected the emphasis on off-base 

discrimination p reached by the Gesell Committee and endorsed by the Secretary 

of Defense. 

19 The plans also revealed the services' essential satisfaction with 

their current on-base programs, although each outlined further reforms within 

the military community. The Navy, for example, announced reforms in recruitment methods, and the Army planned the development of more racially 

equitable training programs and job assignments. All three services discussed 

17Ltr. DASD (CR) to Gesell, 28 Jul64. Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library. 18Intcrv. author with Jordan, 7 Jun 72. 19Mcmos: Dcp to SecAF Cor Manpower. Personnel. and Organization for ASD (M). 15 Aug 63, sub: Im· 

plcmcntation o£ DOD Direnive 5120.36: SA Cor ASD (M). 15 Aug 63. sub: equal Opportunity in the Armed 

Forces; Under SccNav for ASD (M), 15 Aug 63. sub: Outline Plan for Implcmcming Department of Defense 

Directive 5120.36. "Equal Opportunity in the Armed forces." dated 26 Jul63 . All in ASD (M) 291.2. 
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE MILITARY COMMUNITY 561 

new provisions for monitoring their equal opportunity programs. with the Army 

including explicit provisions for the processing of servicemen's racial complaints. And to insure the coordination of equal opportunity matters in future 

staff decisions, each service also announced (the Navy in a separate staff action) 

the formation of an equal opportunity organization in its military staff: an 

Equal Rights Branch in the office of the Army's Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, an Equal Opportunity Group in the Air Force's Directorate of Personnel 

Planning to work in conjunction with its Secretary's Committee on Equal Opportunity, and an Ad Hoc Committee in the Navy's Bureau of Personnel. 

The outline plans revealed that the services entertained differing interpretations of the McNamara call for command responsibility in equal opportunity 

matters. The Gesell Committee had considered this responsibility of fundamental importance and wanted the local commander held accountable and his activities in this area made part of his pedormance rating. There was some 

disagreement among manpower experts on this point. How, one critic asked, 

could the services set up standards against which a commander's performance 

might be fairly judged? How could they insure that an overzealous commander 

might not, in the interest of a higher efficiency report, upset antidiscrimination 

programs that called for subtle negotiation?20 But to Chairman Gesell the equal 

opportunity situation demanded action, and how could this demand be better 

impressed on the commander than by the knowledge that his performance was 

being measured? 21 The point of this argument, which the committee accepted, 

was that unless personal responsibility was fixed, policies and directives on equal 

opportunity were just so much rhetoric. 

Only the Army's outline plan explicitly adopted the committee's controversial recommendation that ''the effective performance of commanders in this 

area will be considered along with other responsibilities in determining his 

overall manner of duty pedormance." The Navy equivocated. Commanders 

would "monitor continually racial matters with a goal toward improvement." 

The Inspectors General of the Navy and Marine Corps were ''instructed to appraise'' all command procedures. The Air Force expected base commanders to 

concern themselves with the welfare and nondiscriminatOry treatment of its servicemen when they were away from the base, but it left them considerable 

freedom in the matter. "The military mission is predominant," the Air Force 

announced, and the local commander must be given wide latitude in dealing 

with discrimination cases since ''each community presented a different situation 

for which local solutions must be developed.'' 

The decision by the Navy and Air Force to exempt commanders from explicit 

responsibility in equal opportunity matters came after some six months of soulsearching. Under Secretary of the Navy Fay agreed with his superior that the 

Navy's equal opportunity "image" suffered in comparison to the other services 

and the percentage of Negroes in the Navy and Marine Corps left much to be 

20Intcrv, author with Davenport, 2 Aug 73. CMH files. 21 Intcrv, author with Gesell, 13 May 72. 
562 

. , 

' ~- -: . . ": ' 

t. • • J 

•• ~ .. :. 1..:,.."' " "'; 

.. , .. ; . 

INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

DIGGING IN. Men of M Company, 7th Mar£nes, construct a defense bunker during 

"Operation Desoto, " Vietnam. 

desired. But when ordered by Secretary Fred Korth to develop a realistic ap· 

proach to equal opportunity in consultation with the Gesell Committee, Fay's 

response tended to ignore service shortcomings and, most significantly, failed to 

fix responsibility for equal opportunity matters. He proposed to revise Navy instructions to provide for increased liaison between local commanders and community leaders and monitor civil rights cases involving naval personnel, but his 

response neither discussed new ways to increase job opportunities for Negroes 

nor mentioned making equal opportunity performance a part of the military efficiency rating system. 22 His elaborate provisions for monitoring and reporting 

notwithstanding, his efforts appeared primarily cosmetic. 

Undoubtedly, the Navy's image in the black community needed some refurbishing. Despite substantial changes in the racial composition of the Steward's 

Branch in recent years, Negroes continued to avoid naval service, as a special 

Navy investigation later found, because "they have little desire to become 

stewards or cooks.' '

23 Fay believed that the shortage of Negroes was pan of a 

_general problem shared by all the services. His public relations proposals were 

22Mcmo, Under SecNav for SecNav, 7 Feb 63, sub: Equal Opportunity in the Navy and Marine Corps, Sec· 

Nav file 5420, GenRccsNav. 23Mcmo, David M. Clinard, Spec Asst. for SccNav, II Oct 63, sub: Interviews With Negro Personnel at 

An'Clrews Air Force Base, copy in CMH. 
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE MILITARY COMMUNITY 563 

designed to overcome the difficulty of attracting volunteers. His recommendations were approved by Secretary Korth in February 1963 and disseminated 

throughout the Navy and Marine Corps for execution. 24 With only minor 

modification they were also l:ater submitted to the Secretary of Defense as the 

Navy's outline plan. 

Even as Fay settled on these modest changes, signs pointed to the possibility 

that the department's military leaders would be amenable to more substantial 

reform. The Chief of Naval Personnel admitted that the Gesell Committee's 

charges against the service were ''to some extent'' justified and warned naval 

commanders that if they failed to take a more positive approach to equal opportunity they would be ordered to take actions difficult for both the Navy and the 

community. Better ''palatable evolutionary progress,'' be counseled, than ''bitter revolutionary change. '' 25 

Air Force officials had also considered the problem of command responsibility in the months before submitting their outline plan. As early as December 

1962, Under Secretary Joseph V. Charyk admitted the possibility of confusion 

over what the policy of base commanders should be concerning off-base segregation. He proposed that the staff consider certain "minimum" actions, including ''mandatory evaluation of all officers concerning their knowledge of this 

program and the extent to which they have complied with the policy of antidiscrimination. " 26 Secretary Zuckert discussed Charyk' s proposal with his 

assistants on 23 January 1963. It was also considered by McNamara, who then 

passed it to the other services, calling on them to develop similar programs. 27 

Finally, Air Force officials discussed command responsibility in preparing their 

critique of Gesell Committee recommendations, and Secretary Zuckert informed Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul that "the responsibility for this [the 

Air Force's anti-discrimination] program will be clearly designated down to base 

level. " 28 Despite this attention, the subject of specific command responsibility 

was not clearly delineated in the Air Force's outline plan. 

Paul ignored the critical differences in the services' outline plans when he 

approved all three without distinction on 13 September. 29 Alfred Fitt later ex24SccNav Instruction 5350.2A, 6 Mar 63; Personal Ltr, SccNav to All Flag and General Officers et al. , 26 

Mar 63, copy in CMH; SecNav Notice 53'50, 3 Apr 63; AINav 28, 6 Sep 63. Sec also Cmdt, USMC, Report of 

Progress- Equal Opportunity in the United Stares Marine Corps (ca. 30 Jun 63), Hist Div HQMC; Memo, 

Chief, NavPers, for Under SecNav, 20 May 63. sub: Interim Progress Report on Navy Measures ... , SccNav 

file 5420, GenRecsNav. 

~Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to CONUS District Cmdrs et al.. 22 Apr 63, attached tO Memo, Chief, NavPers, for 

Distribution List, 24 Apr 63. sub: President's Committee on Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces, SecNav 

file 5420, GenRecsNav. 

26Mcmo, Actg SecAF CofSAF, 8 Dec 62, sub: Anti·Discrimination Policy in the Military Service. SecAF 

files. 27Mcmo, SecDef for SA and Navy, 4 Mar 63. sub: Anti· Discrimination Policy in the Military Service, copy 

in CMH. McNamara received the Ajr Force document from Charyk through Yarmolinsky. Sec Memo, Ben· 

jamin Fridge, Spec Asst for Manpower and Reserve Forces, for SecAP, 4 Mar 63. sub: Anti·Discrimination 

Policies; sec also Memo, Asst Vice CofS, USAF, for SecAP, 26 Feb 63. same sub, 687-63; both in SecAF files. 28Memo, SecAF for ASD (M), 10 Jul 63, sub: Air Force Response to the Gesell Committee Report, ASD 

(M) 291.2. 

29Memo, ASD (M) for Under SA et al., 13 Sep 63, sub: DOD Directive 5120.36, 26 }ul63, Equal Oppor· 

tunity. ASD (M) 291.2 . 
564 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

plained why the Department had not insisted the services adopt the committee's specific recommendations on command responsibility. Commenting on 

the committee's call for the appointment of a special officer at each base to 

transmit black servicemen's grievances to base commanders, Fitt acknowledged 

that most Negroes were reluctant to complain, but said the services were aware 

of this reluctance and had already devised means to overcome it. Problems in 

communication, he pointed out, were leadership problems, and commanders 

must be left free to find their own method of learning about conditions in their 

commands. As for the committee's suggestion that equal opportunity initiatives 

in the local community be made a consideration in the promotion of the commander, the Defense Department had temporized. Such initiatives, Fitt explained, might be considered part of the commander's total performance, but it 

should never be the governing factor in determining advancement. 30 

Yet the principle of command responsibility was not completely ignored, for 

Paul made his approval of the plans contingent on several additional service actions. Each service had to prepare for commanders an instruction manual dealing with the discharge of their equal opportunity responsibilities, develop an 

equal opportunity information program for the periodic orientation of all personnel, and institute some method of insuring that all new commanders 

promptly reviewed equal opportunity programs applicable to their commands. 

The secretary also set deadlines for putting the plans into effect. The preparation of these comprehensive regulations and manuals, however, took much 

longer than expected, a delay, Fitt admitted, that slowed equal opportunity 

progress to some extent. 31 In fact, it was not until January 1965 that the last of 

the basic service regulations on equal opportunity was publishedY 

There were several reasons for the delay. The first was the protracted congressional debate over the civil r.ights bill. Some service officials srrongly supported 

the stand that off-base complaints of black servicemen were chiefly the concern 

of the Justice Department. On a more practical level, however, the Department 

of Defense was reluctant to issue new directives while legislation bearing directly 

on discrimination affecting servicemen was being formulated. Accepting these 

arguments, Paul postponed the services' submission of new regulations and 

manuals until the act assumed final form. 

The delayed publication of the service regulations could also be blamed in 

part on the confusion that surrounded the announcement of a new Defense 

policy on attendance at segregated meetings. The issue arose in early 1964 when 

Fitt discovered some defense employees accepting invitations to participate in 

segregated affairs while others refused on the basis of the secretary's equal opportunity directives. Inconsistency on such a delicate subject disturbed the civil 

3°Aifred B. Fiu, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Civil Rights). "Remarks Before Civilian Aides 

Conference of the Secretary of the Army." 6 Mar 64, copy in CMH. 

31Ltr, DASD (Civil Rights) to Gesell. 30 Apr 64. ASD (M) 291.2. 

32AR 600-21, 2 Jul 64 (superseded by AR 600-21, 18 Mar 65); AFR 35-78, 19 Aug 64 (superseded in 

May 71); SecNav lnsuuctions 5350.6. Jan 65. 5350.5A. 16 Dec 65, and 5370.7. 4 Mar 65. See also NAVSO 

P2483. May 65. "A Commanding Officer's Guide for Establishing Minority Community Relations." 
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE MILITARY COMMUNITY 565 

rights deputy. The services had fortuitously avoided several potentially embarrassing incidents when officials were invited to attend segregated functions, and 

Fitt warned Paul that "if we don't erect a better safeguard than sheer chance, 

we're bound somewhere, sometime soon to look foolish and insensitive." H He 

wanted McNamara to issue a policy statement on the subject, admittedly a difficult task because it would be bard to write and would require White House 

clearance that might not be forthcoming. For the short run Fitt wanted to deal 

with the problem at a regular staff meeting where he could discuss the matter 

and coordinate his strategy without the delay of publishing new regulations. 

As it turned out, anxiety over White House approval proved groundless. 

''The President has on numerous occasions made clear his view that Federal officials should not participate in segregated meetings,'' White House Counsel 

Lee C. White informed all department and agency heads, and he suggested that 

steps be taken in each department to inform all employees. >~ The Deputy 

Secretary of Defense, Cyrus R. Vance, complied on 7 July by issuing a memorandum to the services prohibiting participation in segregated meetings. Adding to 

the text prepared in the White House , he ordered that this prohibition be incorporated in regulations then being prepared, a move that necessitated additional 

staffing of the developing equal opportunity regulations. >> 

Objections to the prohibition were forthcoming . Continuing on a tack he 

had pursued for several years, the Air Force Deputy Special Assistant for Maopower, Personnel, and Organization, James P. Goode, objected to the application of the Vance memorandum to base commanders. These men had to maintain good relations with community leaders, he argued, and good relations were 

best fostered by the commander's joining local community organizations such as 

the Rotary Club and the Chamber of Commerce, which were often segregated. 

These civic and social organizations offered an effective forum for publicizing 

the objectives of the Department of Defense, and to forbid the commander's 

participation because of segregation would seriously reduce his local influence. 

Goode wanted the order "clar.ified" to exclude local community organizations 

from its coverage on the grounds that including them would be ''detrimental to 

the best interests of all military personnel and their dependents and would 

result in a corresponding reduction in military effectiveness.' '

36 The Defense 

Department would have nothing to do with the idea. Such an exception to the , 

'53Memo, DASD (CR) for Paul, 10 Feb 64, sub: Official Attendance at Segregated Meetings. ASD (M) 

291.2. 

HMemo, Assoc Spec Counsel to President for Heads of Departments and Agencies. 12 Jun 64. sub: Further Participation at Segregated Meetings, copy in CMH. 

HMemo, Dep SccDef for Sccys of Military Departments er al .. 7 Jul 64. sub: Federal Participation at 

Segregated Meetings. SO 291.2. The Army's regularion. published on 2 July, five days before Secretary 

Vance's memorandum, was republished on 18 May 1965 to include the prohibition against segregated 

meetings and other new policies. The Navy prepared a special Secretary of Navy instruction (5720.38, 30 Jul 

1964) on the subject. 36Memo. James P. Goode for Dep SecDef. 29 Sep 64, sub: Federal Participation at Segregated Meetings, 

copy in CMH. 
566 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

rule, the civil rights deputy declared, would not constitute a clarification, but 

rather a nullification of the order. The Air Force request was rejected. 37 

The confusion surrounding the publication of service regulations suggested 

that without firm and comprehensive direction from the Office of the Secretary 

of Defense the services would never develop effective or uniform programs. 

Service officials argued that commanders had always been allowed to execute 

racial policy without specific instructions. They feared popular reaction to 

forceful regulations, and, in truth, they were already being subjected to congressional criticism over minor provisions of the Gesell Committee's report. Even 

the innocuous suggestion that officers be appointed to channel black servicemen's complaints was met with charges of "snooping" and "gestapo" tactics. 38 

Although both the Gesell Committee and Secretary McNamara had made 

clear that careful direction was necessary, the manpower office of the Department of Defense temporized. Instead of issuing detailed guidelines to the services that outlined their responsibilities for enforcing the provision of the 

secretary's equal opportunity directive, instead of demanding a strict accounting 

from commanders of their execution of these responsibilities, Paul asked the 

services for oudine plans and then indiscriminately approved these plans even 

when they passed over real accountability in favor of vaguely stated principles. 

The result was a lengthy period of bureaucratic confusion. Protected by the lack 

of specific instructions the services went through an Alfonse-Gaston routine, 

each politely refraining from commitment to substantial measures while waiting 

to see how far the others would go. 39 

Fighting Discrimination Within the Services 

The immediate test for the services' belatedly organized civil rights apparatus was the racial discrimination lingering within the armed forces 

themselves. The Civil Rights Commission and the Gesell Committee had been 

concerned with the exceptions to the services' generally satisfactory equal opportunity record. It was these exceptions, such chronic problems as underrepresentation of Negroes in some services, in the higher military grades, and in skilled 

military occupations, that continued to concern the Defense Department civil 

rights organization and the services as they tried to carry out McNamara's directive. Seemingly minor compared to the diserimination faced by black servicemen outside the military reservation, racial problems within the military 

family and how the services dealt with them would have direct bearing on the 

tranquility of the armed forces in the 1970's. 

nDraft Memo, DASD (Civ Pers, Indus Rels. and CR) for Dep for Manpower. Personnel, and Organiza· 

tion, USAF, 7 Oct 64, sub: Federal Participation at Segregated Meetings. The memorandum was not actually 

dispatched, and a note on the original draft discloses that after discussion between the Deputy Assistant 

Secretary of Defense and the Assistant Secretary of Defense: (~an power) the rejection of the: Air Force request 

was "handled verbally." Copy of the memo in CMH. 

38Fitt, "Remarks Before Civilian Aides Conference of the Secretary of the Army," 6 Mar 64. 

391nterv, author with Evans, 23 Jul 73. CMH files. 
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE MILITARY COMMUNITY 567 

LISTENlNG TO THE SQUAD LEADER. Men of Company D, 21st Infantry, prepare to 

move out, Quang Tin Province, Vietnam. 

Two pressing needs, and obviously interrelated ones, were to attract a greater 

number of young blacks to a m ilitary career and improve the status of Negroes 

already in uniform . These were not easy, short-term tasks. In the first place the 

Negro, ironically in view of the services' now genuine desire to have him, was no 

longer so interested in joining. As explained by Defense Department civil rights 

officials, the past attitudes and practices of the services, especially the treatment 

of Negroes during World War II, had created among black opinion-makers an 

indifference toward the services as a vocation.

40 Lacking encouragement from 

parents, teachers, and peers, black youths were increasingly reluctant to consider 

a military career. For their part the services tried ro counter this attitude with an 

energetic public relations program. 41 Encouraged by the department's civil 

40Paul Memo. 

41 For accounts of Navy and Marine Corps attempts to attract more Negroes. see Memos: Smedberg for 

Under SecNav, 20 May 63, sub: Interim Progress Report on Navy Measures in the Area of Equality of Opportunity in the Armed Forces; Under Se-cNav for SecNav, 15 Jul 63, sub: First Report of Progress in the Area 

of Equal Opponunity in the Navy Department; E. Hidalgo, Spec Am to SecNav, for L Howard Bennett, 

Principal Asst for Civil Rights. OASD (CR), 1 Oct 65, sub: Summary of Seeps Deemed Necessary ro Increase 

Number of Qualified Negro Officers and Enlisted Personnel on the Navy/Marine Corps Team, SecNav file 

5420 (1179). All in GenRecsNav. Sec also Memos, Marine Aide co SecNav for CofS, USMC. 5 Aug 63. sub: 

Equal Opportunity in the Armed Services. and ACofS, G - 1, USMC, for CofS, USMC, 17 Aug 63. same sub, 
568 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

rights expercs they tried to establish closer relations with black students. They 

even reorganized their recruitment programs, and the Secretary of Defense 

himself initiated a program to attract more black ROTC cadetsY Service 

representatives also worked with teachers and school officials to inform students 

on military career opportunities. 

Enlistment depended not only on ·a man's desire to join but also on his ability to qualify. Following the publication of a presidential task force report on the 

chronic problem of high draft rejection rates, the Army inaugurated in August 

1964 a Special-Training and Enlistment Program (STEP), an experiment in the 

"military training, education, and physical rehabilitation of meo who cannot 

meet current mental or medical standards for regular enlistment in the 

Army.' '

43 Aimed at increasing enlistments by providing special training after induction for those previously rejected as unqualified, the program provided for 

the enlistment of 8,000 substandard men, which inclu.ded many Negroes. 

Before the men could be enUsted, however, Congress killed the program, citing 

its cost and duplication of the efforts of the Job Corps. It was not until 1967 that 

the .idea of accepting many young men ineligible for the draft because of mental 

or educational deficiencies was revived when McNamara launched his Project 

100,000.44 

The services were unable to bring off a dramatic change in black enlistment 

patterns in the 1960's. With the exception of the Marine Corps, in which the 

proportion of black enlisted men increased 4 percent, the percentage of Negroes 

in the services remained relatively stationary between 1962 and 1968 (Table 24). 

In 1968, when Negroes accounted for 11 percent of the American population, 

their share of the enlisted service population remained at 8.2, with significant 

differences among the services. Nor did there seem much chance of increasing 

the number of black servicemen since the percentage of Negroes among draftees 

TABLE 24-BLACK PERCENTAGES. 1962-1968 

Army Navy Marine Corps Air Force 

Year Enlisted Enlisted Enlisted Enlisted 

Officers Men Officers Men Officers Men Officers Men 

1962 . . . .. ......... 3.2 12.2 .2 5.2 .2 7.6 1.2 9.2 

1964 .... ...... .. . . 3.4 13.4 .3 5.8 .4 8.7 u 10.0 

1965 . . . .. .. • . . . . • . 3.) 13.9 .3 ) .8 A 9.0 1.6 10.7 

1967 .. .. . . . . ... . . . 3.4 12.1 .3 4.7 .7 10.3 1.8 10.4 

1968 . .. . .. . .. . . . .. 3.3 12.6 .4 5.0 .9 11.5 1.8 10.2 

Sour~ : Records of ASD (M) 29 1.2. 

both in MC files. For OSD awareness of the problem, sec Stephen N. Shulman, ''The Civil Rights Policies of 

the Department of Defense. " 4 May 65 , copy in CMH. 

4 2Memo, SccDef for Educators, 6 Oct 6), sub: Equal Opportunity at the Service Academies of the United 

States Army, Navy, and Air Force, SD 291.2. 43DOD News Release , 13 Aug 64. Sec the President's Task Force on Manpower Conservation, One-Third 

of a Nation: A Report on Young ~t Found Unqualified for Military SeNJice (Washington: Government 

Printing Office. 1964). Kennedy established the task force in September 1963. Its members included the 

Secretaries of Labor, Defense, and Health. Educarion and Welfare and rhe Direcror of Selective Service. 

44McNamara, The Essence of Security, pp. 131- 38. See also Bahr, "The Expanding Role of the Department of Defense." ch. V. 
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE MILITARY COMMUNITY 569 

and first-time enlistees was rising very slowly while black reenlistment rates, for 

some twenty years a major factor in holding black strength steady, began ro 

decline (Table 25). Actually. enlistment figures for both whites and blacks 

declined, a circumstance usually attributed to the unpopularity of the Vietnam 

War, although in the midst of the war, in 1967, black first-term reenlistment 

rates continued to exceed white rates 2 to 1. 

The low percentage of black officers, a matter of special concern to the Civil 

Rights Commission and the Gesell Committee as well as the civil rights 

organizations, remained relatively unchanged in the 1960's (see Table 24). Nor 

could any dramatic rise in the number of black officers be expected. Between 

TABLE 25-RATES FOR REENLISTMENTS, 1964-1967 

Army Navy Marine Corps Air l'orce 

Year White Black White Black White Black White Black 

1964 ........ .. .... 18.5 49.3 21.6 41.3 12.9 25.1 27.4 50.3 

1965 ....... . ... • . . 13.7 49.3 24 .2 44.8 18.9 38.9 19.1 39.2 

1966 ....... •... . .. 20.0 66.5 17.6 24.7 10.5 19.5 16.0 30.1 

1967 .. ............ 12.9 31.7 16.7 22.5 10.7 17.4 17.3 26.9 

Sou"e: Records of ASD (M) 291 .2; see espect:ally P2ul Memo. 

1963 and 1968 the three service academies graduated just fifty-one black officers, an impressive statistic only in the light of the record of a total of sixty 

black graduates in the preceding eighty-six years. Furthermore, there were only 

116 black cadets in 1968, a vast proportional increase over former years but also 

an indication of the small number of black officers that could be expected from 

that source during the next four years (Table 26). Since cadets were primarily 

chosen by congressional nomination and from other special categories, little 

could be done, many officials assumed, to increase substantially the number of 

TABLE 26- BLACK ArrENDANCio ATTHio MILITARY A CAOEMIIlS, }ULY 1968 

Class Class Class Closs Total Total 

Academy ofl ?69 of 1970 of 1971 of 1972 Negro Allend•nce 

Army . ........... • 10 7 5 9 31 3,285 

Navy .... .. ... .. . • 2 8 8 15 33 4.091 

Air Jlorce .. . .... . .. 6 10 13 23 52 3,028 

Totals ......... 18 25 26 47 116 

Sou"e: Off tee, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Civil Rights). 

black cadets and midshipmen. An imaginative effort by Fitt in early 1964, 

however, proved this assumption false. Fitt got the academies to agree to take all 

the qualified Negroes he could find and some senarors and congressmen to 

relinquish some of their appointments to the cause. He then wrote every major 

school district in the country, seeking black applicants and assuring them that 

the academies were truly open to all those qualified. Even though halfway 

through the academic year, Fitt's "micro-personnel operation," as he later 
570 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

called it, yielded appointments for ten Negroes. Unfortunately, his successor 

did not continue the effort.45 

The ROTC program at predominantly black colleges had always been the 

chief source of black officers, but here, again, there was little hope for immediate improvement. With the exception of a large increase in the number of 

black Air Force officers graduating from five black colleges, the percentage of officers entering the service from these institutions remained essentially unchanged throughout the 1960's despite the services' new equal opportunity programs (Table 27). Some civil rights leaders had been arguing for years that the 

TABI.E 27-ARMY ANO AIR FORCE COMMISSIONS GRANTED AT PREOOMINANnY BLACK SCHOOLS 

Army Commissions 

Class of Class of 

School 1964 1965 

A&T College, N.C. ..... ... ...... -· ......... 24 22 

Central State College, Ohio ... .•• . . .. .. . .... •. 29 14 

Florida A&M College .. . .. . . . . •...•.. . •... . •. 29 15 

Hampton University, Va ...... .. .. . .. . .• .... •. 29 34 

Lincoln University, Pa .. ... ............•.. .. •. 19 14 

Morgan State College, Md . ...... .. . . . .... . .. . 21 27 

Prairie View A&M College. Tex .....•...•.. , .. • 20 27 

South Carolina State College .. . . . .. . .... . . . .. • 16 23 

Southern University, La ............ . .... •.... • 23 37 

Tuskegee Institute, Ala .......... •..... . •.. . . • 14 14 

Virginia State College ... ...... ... . ..... •..... 21 14 

West Virginia State College ..... . . .. . . . .. .. . .. 22 19 

Howard University, Washington, D.C ........... 19 37 

Total ............... . .... . .. . . . .. . . . .. 286 297 

Percentage of total such commissions granted. 2.4 2.7 

Air Force Commissions 

Class 

School of 1964 

A&TCollege, N.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 

Howard University, Washington, D.C.... . ... . . .. . . .. . .. . ... 24 

Maryland Stare College............ ... .. . . . . .. . . . ..... . .. . 2 

Tennessee A&! University . . . . . . . . . • . . • . . . . • . . . . • . . . . . . . . . 13 

Tuskegee Instirure, Ala............ . . .. .... . .... . ..... . .. . 14 

Total.... . ................... . .................... 65 

So11rce: Office. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Civil Rights) . 

Class of 

1966 

10 

26 

23 

20 

16 

12 

31 

24 

19 

20 

18 

15 

30 

264 

2.5 

Class 

of 1965 

10 

31 

4 

26 

33 

104 

Class of 

1967 

17 

25 

15 

19 

19 

16 

38 

24 

21 

26 

21 

14 

23 

278 

2.6 

Class 

of 1966 

33 

23 

4 

32 

41 

133 

establishment of ROTC units at predominantly black schools merely helped 

perpetuate the nation's segregated college system. Fitt agreed that as integrated 

education became more commonplace the number of black ROTC graduates 

would increase in predominantly white colleges, but meanwhile he considered 

units ac black schools essential. Among the approximately 140 black colleges 

without ROTC affiliation, some could possibly qualify for units, and in 

February 1965 Fitt's successor, Stephen N. Shulman, called for the formation of 

45Ltr, Fitt to author, 21 Oct 76, CMH files. 
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE MILITARY COMMUNITY 571 

more ROTC units as an equal opportunity measure.46 The Army responded by 

creating a unit at Arkansas A&M Normal College, and the Navy opened a unit 

at Prairie View A&M in the President's home state of Texas. Balancing the expectations implied by the formation of these new units were the growing antiwar sentiment among college students and the special competition for black college graduates in the private business community, both of which made ROTC 

commissions less attractive to many black students. 

Chance of promotion for officers and men was one factor in judging equal 

treatment and opportunity in the services. A statistical comparison of the ranks 

of enlisted black servicemen between 1964 and 1966 reveals a steady advance 

(Table 28). With the exception of the Air Force, the percentage of Negroes in 

TABLE 28-PERCENTAGEOF NEGROES IN CERTAIN MIUTARY RANKS, 1964-1966 

E-6 (S11:ff Sergeant or Petty Officer. First Class) 

Army .. .. .... . .............. .. .... • ... ... .. ........... 

Navy .... ..... .................. . .................... . 

Marine Corps ...... ...... ........ .. ................. . .. . 

Air Force . ....... . .... . .... ... ...... .. ........ .. ...... . 

1964 

13.9 

4.7 

.0 

5.3 

0-4 (Major or Lieutenant Commander) 

Army. .................................. ...... ... ..... 3.6 

Navy ...................... ...... . . ... ..... .... ..... .. 0.3 

Marine Corps. ....... ..... . .. .. ....... .. ........ .... .... 0.3 

Air Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.8 

Sou"e: Office. Deputy .Assistant Secretary of Defense (Civil Rights). 

1965 

IU 

~.0 

3 

~.6 

4.~ 

0.3 

0.3 

0.9 

1966 

18.1 

~.6 

10.4 

6.6 

~.2 

o:3 

0.2 

1.6 

the higher enlisted ranks compared favorably with the total black percentage in 

each service. The advance was less marked for officers, but here too the black 

share of the 0-4 grade (major or lieutenant commander) was comparable with 

the black percentage of the service's total strength. The services could declare 

with considerable justification that reform in this area was necessarily a drawnout affair; promotion to the senior ranks must be won against strong competition. 

The department's civil rights office forwarded to the services complaints 

from black servicemen who, despite the highest efficiency ratings and special 

commendations from commanders, failed to win promotions. ''Almost 

uniformly,'' the office reported in 1965, ''the reply comes back from the service 

that there had been no bias, no partiality, no prejudice operating in detriment 

on the complainant's consideration for promotion. They reply the best qualified 

was promoted, but this was not to say that the complainant did not have a very 

46Fitt'left the civil rights office in August 1964 to become the General Counsel of the Army. At his depar· 

rure the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Civil Rights was consolidated with that of the 

Deputy for Civilian Personnel and Industrial Relations. The incumbent of the latter position, Stephen 

Shulman, became Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Civilian Personnel, Industrial Relations, and Civil 

Rights. Shulman, a graduate of Yale Law School and former Executive Assistant to the Secretary of Labor, had 

been closely involved in the Defense Department's equal opportunity program in indusuial contracts. 
572 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

good record. 47 While black officers might well have been subtly discriminated 

against in matters of promotion, they also, it should be pointed out, shared in 

the general inflation in efficiency ratings, common in all the services, that 

resulted in average officers being given ''highest efficiency ratings.'' 

In addition to complaining of direct denial of promotion opportunity, socalled ''vertical mobility,'' some black officers alleged that their chances of promotion had been systematically reduced by the services when they failed to provide Negroes with "horizontal mobility," that is, with a wide variety of 

assignments and all-important command experience which would justify their 

future advancement. Supporting these claims, the civil rights office reported 

that only 5 Negroes were enrolled at the senior service schools in 1965, 4 black 

naval officers with command experience were on active duty, and 26 black Air 

Force officers had been given tactical command experience since 1950. The 

severely limited assignment of black Army officers at the major command headquarters, moreover, illustrated the "narrow gauge" assignment of Negroes.~ 8 

This picture seemed somewhat at variance with Deputy Assistant Secretary 

Shulman's assurances to the Kansas Conference on Civil Rights in May 1965 that 

''we have paid particular attention to the assignment of Negro officers to the 

senior Service schools, and to those positions of command that are so vital to officer advancement to the highest rank.' '

49 

Since promotion in the military ranks depended to a great extent on a man's 

skills, training in and assignment to vital job categories were important to 

enlisted men. Here, too, the statistics revealed that the percentage of Negroes in 

the technical occupations, which had begun to rise in the years after Korea, had 

continued to increase but that a large proportion still held unskilled or semiskilled military occupational specialties (Table 29). Eligibility for the various 

military occupations depended to a great extent on the servicemen's mental aptitude, with men scoring in the higher categories usually winning assignment to 

technical occupations. When the Army began drafting large numbers of men in 

the mid-1960's, the number of men in category IV, which included many 

Negroes, began to go up. Given the fact that many Negroes with the qualifications for technical training were ignoring the services for other vocations while 

the less qualified were once again swelling the ranks, the Department of 

Defense could do little to insure a fair representation of Negroes in technical occupations or increase the number of black soldiers in higher grades. The problem tended to feed upon itself. Not only were the statistics the bane of civil 

rights organizations, but they also influenced talented young blacks to decide 

against a service career, in effect creating a variation of Gresham's law in the 

Army wherein men of low mentality were keeping out men of high intelligence. 

There seemed little to be done, although the department's civil rights office 

pressed 'the services to establish remedial training for category IV men so that 

they might become eligible for more technical assignments. 

Paul Memo. 48Ibid. 

49Shulman, ''The Civil Rights Policies of the Department of Defense,'' 4 May 65. 
EQUAL OPPORWNITY IN THE MILITARY COMMUNITY 573 

TABLE 29-DISTRIBVTION Of SERVICEMEN IN OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS BY RACE. 1967 

White Black Unknown Total 

Percent 

oiTotal 

Percent Percent in Each 

Group/ Activity Number Oist. Number Disr. Group/ Number Number 

Activity 

Combat troops ........ 324.)60 12. 1 )5.)18 18.7 14 .) 2,646 382,724 

Electronics repairmen ... 239.)9) 9.0 13.843 4.7 u 204 253.642 

Communications 

specialists ........ . . 191.372 7.2 12.8)6 4.4 6.3 392 204.620 

Medical personnel ..... 101.793 3.8 11.074 3.8 9.8 76 112,943 

Other technicians ...... H.H2 1.9 3.812 1.3 6.8 86 56.030 

Administrative personncl. .. . ........... . 430.186 16.1 )).)43 18.8 11.4 986 486.715 

Mechanical repairmen .. 498.899 18.6 39.820 13.) 7.4 794 539.51 3 

Draftsmen . .... . ... . . 144.070 H 15.728 ).3 9.8 248 160,046 

Service & supply personncl .......... . .. ... 283.976 10.6 53.136 18.0 1).7 998 338,110 

Miscellaneous/ unknown 24).0)) 9. 1 14.964 5.1 13.5 1,337 261 .356 

Trainees• ..... . .... . .. 166.478 6.2 18.753 6.4 10. 1 1,194 186,425 

Total .. . ......... 2.678.116 100.0 29).047 100.0 9.9 8.961 2.982,124 

•Represents on Army c:uegory only. 

Source: Bohr. "The Exponding Role of the Department ol Defense As an Instrument of Sociol Change. " Bohr's toble is 

boscd on unpublished data from rhe DASD (CR). 

If a man's assignment and promotion depended ultimately on his aptitude 

category, that category depended upon his performance in the Armed Forces 

Qualifying Test and other screening tests usually administered at induction. 

These tests have since been widely criticized as being culturally biased, more a 

test of an individual's understanding of the majority race's cultural norms than 

his mental aptitude. Even the fact that the tests were written also left them open 

to charges of bias. Some educational psychologists have claimed that an individual's performance in written tests measured his cultural and educational 

background, not his mental aptitude. It is true that the accuracy of test 

measurements was never reassessed in light of the subsequent performance of 

those tested. The services paid little attention to these serious questions in the 

1960's, yet as a Defense Department task force studying the administration of 

military justice was to observe later: 

the most important determination about a serviceman's future career (both in and out 

of the service) is made almost solely on the basis of the results of these tests: where he 

will be placed, how and whether he will be promoted during his hitch, and whether 

what he will learn in the service will be saleable for his post-service career. 50 

The Department of Defense depended on the ''limited predictive capability of 

these tests," the task force charged, in deciding whether a serviceman was 

assigned to a "soft core" field , char is, given a job in such categories as transportation or supply, or whether he could enter one of the more profitable and 

prestigious "hard core" fields that would bring more rapid advancement. 

)

0De1>anmenr of Defense, " Report of the Task Force on rhe Administration of Military Justice in the Armed Forces," 30 Nov 72 . vol. I, p. 47. 
574 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Accurate and comprehensive testing and the measurement of acquired skills 

was obviously an important and complex matter, but in 1963 it was ignored by 

both the Civil Rights Commission and the Gesell Committee. President Kennedy, however, seemed aware of the problem. Before leaving for Europe in the 

summer of 1963 he called on the Secretary of Defense to consider establishing 

training programs keyed primarily to the special problems of black servicemen 

found ineligible for technical training. According to Lee White, the President 

wanted to use new training techniques "and other methods of stimulating interest and industry" that might help thousands of men bridge "the gap that 

presently exists between their own educational and cultural backgrounds and 

those of the average white serviceman.'' 51 

Because of the complexity of the problem, White agreed with Fitt that the 

program should be postponed pending further study, but the President's request happened tO coincide with a special survey of the deficiencies and changes 

in recruit training then being made by Under Secretary of the Army Stephen 

Ailes. 52 Ailes offered tO develop a special off-duty training program in line with 

the President's request. The program, to begin on a trial basis in October 1963, 

would also include evaluation counseling to determine if and when trainees 

should be assigned tO technical schools. H Such a program represented a departure for the services, which since World War II had consistently rejected the 

idea frequently advanced by sociologists that the culturally, environmentally, 

and educationally deprived were denied equal opportunity when they were required to compete with the middle-class average. 54 Although no specific, 

measurable results were recorded from this educational experiment, the project 

was eventually blended into the Army's Special Training and Enlistment Program and finally into McNamara's Project 100,000. 55 

Beyond considering the competence of black servicemen, the Department of 

Defense had to face the possibility that discrimination was operating at least in 

some cases of assignment and promotion. Abolishing the use of racial designations on personnel records was one obvious way of limiting such discrimination, 

and throughout the mid-1960's the department sought to balance the conflicting demands for and against race labeling. Along with the integration of 

military units in the 1950's, the services had narrowed their multiple and 

cumbersome definition of races to a list of five groups. Even this list, a compromise drawn up by the Defense Department's Personnel Policy Board, was 

criticized. Reflecting the op.inion of the civil rights forces, Evans declared that 

the definition of five races and twelve subcategories was scientifically inaccurate, 

51 Memo, Asst Spec Counsel co President for SecDef, 27 Jun 63, copy in CMH. 

52ACSFOR. "Annual Historical Summary, Fiscal Years 1963-64," copy in CMH; Memo, DASD (CR) for 

Paul, 2~ Sep 63, sub: Training Program Keyed Primarily to the Special Problems of Negro Servicemen, ASD 

(M) files. 

HMemo, Under SA for ASD (M), 14 Scp 63, sub: Training Program Keyed Primarily to the Special Problems of Negro Servicemen; Memo, ASD (M) for Asst Spec Counsel to President, 25 Scp 63; both in ASD (M) 

files. 

54For a discussion of this argument, see {BuPers] Memo for Red. Capt K. ]. B·. Sanger, USN. 9 Ocr 63, Pers 

I, BuPersRecs. 

55 Imcrv, author with Davenport, ASA, Manpower (Ret.), 2 Aug 73, CMH files. 
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE MILITARY COMMUNITY 575 

statistically complicated, and racially offensive. He wanted a simple "white, 

nonwhite" listing of servicemen. s<> The subject continued to be discussed 

throughout the 1960's, the case finally going to the Director of the Bureau of 

the Budget, the ultimate authority on government forms. In August 1969 the 

director announced a uniform method for defining the races in federal statistics. 

The collectives "Negro and Other Races," "All Other Races," or "All Other" 

would be acceptable to designate minorities; the terms ''White,'' ''Negro,'' 

and "Other Races" would be acceptable in distinguishing between the majority, principal minority, and other races. 5

7 

It was the use to which these definitions were put more than their number 

that had concerned civil rights leaders since the 1950's. Under pressure from 

civil rights organizations, some congressmen, and the Office of the Secretary of 

Defense, the services began to abandon some of the least justifiable uses of racial 

designations, principally those used on certain inductees' travel orders, reassignment orders, and reserve rosters. )S But change was not widespread, and as late as 

1963 the services still distinguished by race in their basic personnel records, 

casualty reports, statistical and command strength reports, personnel control 

files, and over twenty-five otlher departmental forms. 59 They continued to defend the use of racial designations on the grounds that measurement of equal 

opportunity programs and detection of discrimination patterns depended on accurate racial data.6

° Few could argue with these motives, although critics continued to question the need for race designations on records that were used in 

assignment and promotion processes. When public opposition developed to the 

use of racial entries on federal forms in general, the President's Committee on 

Equal Opportunity appointed a subcommittee in 1963 under Civil Service 

Chairman John W. Macy, Jr., to investigate. After much deliberation this group 

conducted a statistical experiment within the Department of Agriculture to 

discover whether employees could be identified by racial groups in a confidential manner separate from other personnel data.61 

s<>see, for example, the following Memos: Evans for Judge Jackson. 1 Apr 63, and Mr. Jordan, 3 Sep 64, 

sub: Racial Designations; Douglas Dahli.n for E. E. Moyers, 3 Sep ~8. sub: Case History of an OSD Action; 

James Evans for Philip M. Timpane, 10 Aug 6~. sub: Race and Color-Coding. See also Memo for Red, Evans, 

I~ Aug 62, sub: Racial Designations. All in DASD (CR) files. 

HBureau of rhe Budget, Circular No. A-46, Transmittal Memorandum No.8, 8 Aug 69. 

)

8See Ltr, Clarence Mitchell, NAACP, to ASD (M), 8 Jul ~3; Lrr, j:ongressman HenryS. Reuss of Wiscon· 

sin to SecDef. 27 Sep 56; Memo, Yarmolinsky for Fitt, 29 Nov 61; Memo, Dep Under SA for ASD (M), 1 Dec 

61, sub: Racial Designation in Special Orders; Ltr, Chmn, Cmte on Gov Operations, House of Representatives, to SA, 9 Jul 62: Memo, ASD (M) for SA, 29 Mar 51. sub: Racial Designations on Travel Orders; 

Memo, Chief, Mil Personnel Management Div, G-1, for Dir; Personnel Policies, 5 Aug 52, sub: Racial 

Designations, G-1 291.2; Memo, SecNav for ASD (M), 7 May 54, sub: Deletion of Question Regarding 

"Race" .... Copies of all in CMH. 

)

9See Memo, TAG for Distribution, 21 Sep 62, sub: Racial Identification in Army Documents, AGAM 

(M) 291.2: Memo for Red, Evans, 20 Dec 62, sub: Racial Designations-Navy, ASD (M) 291.2; Memo, DASD 

(CR) for DASD (H&M) et al., 19 Feb 64, sub: Racial Designations on Department of Defense Forms, copy in 

CMH. 

60See, for example, Ltr, Dir of Personnel Policy (OSD) to J. Francis Pohlhous, Counsel, NAACP, 6 Jul 5~. ASD (M) 291.2. 

61Ltr, Director, Civil Service Commission, to Rear Adm Robert L. Moore, Chief of Industrial Relations, 

USN, 9 Jul63, copy in CMH. 
576 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

The civil rights staff of the Defense 

Department was also interested in further limiting the use of race in departmental forms. In April 1963 Assistant 

Secretary Paul ordered a review of ( 

military personnel records and report-

\ 

ing forms to determine where racial entries were included unnecessarily. 62 His 

review uncovered twenty-five forms 

used in common by the services and the 

Office of the Secretary of Defense that 

contained racial designations. On 3 

March 1964 Paul discreetly ordered the 

removal of race designations on all but 

nine of these forms, those concerning 

biostatistical, criminal, and casualty 

figures. 6

; His order did not, however, 

extend to another group of forms used 

by individual services for their own purposes, and later in the year Fitt drafted 

an order that would have eliminated all 

racial designations in the services except 

SUPPLYING THE SEVENTH FLEET. USS 

Procyon crewmen rig netload of supplies for a warship. 

an entry for data processing systems and one for biostatistical information. The 

directive also would have allowed racial designations on forms that did not identify individuals, arranged for the disposition of remains and casualty reporting, 

described fugitives and other ''wanted'' types, and permitted other exceptions 

granted at the level of the Assistant Secretary of Defense or that of the service 

secretary. Finally it would have set up a system for purging existing records and 

removing photographs from promotion board selection folders. 64 The services 

strongly objected to a purge of existing records on the grounds of costliness, and 

they were particularly opposed to the removal of photographs. Photographs 

were traditional and remained desirable , Deputy Under Secretary of the Army 

Roy K. Davenport explained, because they were useful in portraying individual 

physical characteristics unrelated to race. ~ Davenport added, however, that 

photographs could be eliminated from promotion board materials. 

62Memo, Spec Am to ASD (M) foe Under SA, 15 Apr 63. sub: Racial Identification on Military Records 

(similar memorandums were sent to the Secretaries of Navy and Air Force on the same day); Memo, ASD (M) 

for OASD (Comptroller) (ca. l Jun 63): both in ASD (M) 291.2. For service reviews, answers. and exchanges 

on the subject, sec ASD (M) 68A-I006. Sec also Memo, SSJ (StephenS. Jackson, Spec ASSt to ASD (M)I for 

Valdes, OASD (M). and James C. Evans, li Jun 63. ASD (M) 29 1.2. 

G}Mcmo, DASD (CR) for DASD (Management), 3 Mar 64. sub: Elimination of Racial Designations on DD 

Forms (the Army adopted this DOD policy in the form of Change I wAR 66-21 in October 1965). Sec also 

Memo, DASD (CR) for DASD (H&M) ct al. , 19 Feb 64. sub: Racial Designations on Department of Defense 

Forms; idem for Lee C. White, 9 Jul 64. All in ASD (M) files. Sec also Washington Ever1ing Star, June 22, 

1964. p. A2 . 64Mcmo, Philip M. Tim pane for DASD (CR), 10 Aug 64, sub: Race on Records, ASD (M) 291.2. 6)Mcmo. Dep Under SA for DASD (CR), 3 Jun 64. sub: Proposed DOD Instruction Rc: Usc of Racial 

Designations in Forms and Records and Annual Racial Distribution Report, copy in CMH. 
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE MILITARY COMMUNITY 577 

These proposals marked a high point in the effort to simplify and reduce the 

use of racial designations by the Department of Defense. Although several versions of Fitt' s 1964 draft order were discussed in later years, none was ever 

published.66 Nor did the Bureau of the Budget, to which the matter was referred for the development of a government-wide policy, publish any instuctions. 

In fact, by the mid- 1960's an obvious trend had begun in the Department of 

Defense toward broader use of racial indicators but narrower definition of race. 

Several changes in American society were responsible for the changes. The 

need for more exact racial documentation overcame the argument for removing 

racial designations,· for the civil rights experts both within and outside the 

department demanded more detailed racial statistics to protect and enlarge the 

equal opportunity gains of the sixties. The demand was also supported by 

representatives of the smaller racial minorities who, joining in the civil rights 

revolution, developed a self-awareness that made detailed racial and ethnic 

statistics mandatory. The shift was made possible to a great extent by the change 

in public opinion toward racial minorities. As one civil rights official later 

noted, the change in attitude had caused black servicemen to reconsider their 

belief that detrimental treatment necessarily followed racial identificationY 

Ironically. just a decade after the McNamara directive on equal opportunity, a 

departmental civil rights official, himself a Negro, was defending the use of 

photographs in the selection process on the grounds that such procedures were 

necessary in any large organization where individuals were relatively unknown to 

their superiors. 68 So strong had the services' need for black officers become, it 

could be argued, that a promotion board's knowledge of a candidate's race redounded to the advantage of the black applicants. For whatever reason, the 

pressure to eliminate racial indicators from personnel forms had largely disappeared at the end of the 1960's. 

The Gesell Committee's investigations also forced the Department of 

Defense to consider the possibility of discrimination in the rarefied area of embassy and special mission assignments and the certainty of discrimination 

against black servicemen in local communities near some overseas bases. Concerning the former, the staff of the civil rights deputy concluded that such 

assignments were voluntary and based on special selection procedures. Race was 

not a factor except for three countries where assignments were "based on 

politically ethnic considerations.' '

69 Nevertheless, Pitt began to discuss with the 

~L. Howard Bennett, Untitled Minutes of Equal Opportunity Council Meetings on the Subject of Racial 

Indicators, 30 Sep 66; Memo, Bennett for Thomas Morris and Jack Moskowitz, 8 Dec 66, sub: Actions to Aid 

in Assuring Equality of Opportunity During Ratings, Assignment, Selection, and Promotion Processes, copies 

of both in CMH. Judge Bennett was the executive secretary of the Equal Opportunity Council within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. ao interdepartmental working group dealing with racial indicators in 

September 1966 and consisting of cwo members from each manpower office of the services and P.M. Tim pane 

of the DASD (Equal Opportunity) office. 

67Memo, Bennett for ASD (M) and DASD (Civ Pers, Indus Rels, and CR). 8 Dec 66, copy in CMH. 

68Interv, author with Johnson, 9 Aug 73. 

69Memo, Exec to DASD (CR) for DASD (CR), 20 Mar 64; see also OASD (CR), Summary of Military Personnel Assignments in Overseas Areas; both in ODASD (CR) files. Negroes were not the only Americans excluded from certain countries for ''politically ethnic considerations.'' Jewish servicemen were barred from certain Middle East countries. 
578 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

services ways to attract more qualified black volunteers for assignments to attache~ mission, and military assistance groups. 

The department was less responsive to the Gesell Committee's recommendations on racial restrictions encountered off base overseas. The services, traditionally, had shunned consideration of this matter, citing their role as guests. 

When the Department of Defense outlined the commander's responsibility 

regarding off-base discrimination overseas, it expressly authorized commanders 

to impose sanctions in foreign communities, yet just five weeks later the services 

clarified the order for the press, explaining that sanctions would be limited to 

the United States. 70 A spokesman for the U.S. Army in Germany admitted that 

discrimination continued in restaurants and bars, adding that such discrimination was illegal in Germany and was limited to the lowest class establishments. 71 

Supporting these conclusions was a spate of newspaper reportS of segregated 

establishments in certain areas of Okinawa and the neighborhood around an 

Army barracks near Frankfurt, Germany. 72 

Despite these continuing press reports, the services declared in mid-1965 

that the ''overwhelming majority'' of overseas installations were free of segregation problems in housing or public accommodations. One important exception 

to this overwhelming majority was reported by General Paul Freeman, the commander of U.S. Army Forces in Europe. He not only admitted that the problem 

existed in his command but also concluded that it had been imported from the 

United States. The general had met with Gerhard Gesell and subsequently 

launched a special troop indoctrination program in Europe on discrimination in 

public accommodations. He also introduced a voluntary compliance program to 

procure open housing. 

73 

The Gesell Committee had repeatedly asserted that discrimination existed 

only in areas near American bases, and its most serious manifestations were 

"largely inspired by the attitude of a minority of white servicemen" who exerted social pressure on local businessmen. It was, therefore, a problem for 

American forces, and not primarily one for its allies. The civil rights office, 

however, preferred to consider the continuing discrimination as an antiAmerican phenomenon rather than a racial problem. 74 Fitt and his successor 

seemed convinced that such discrimination was isolated and its solution complex 

because of the difficulty in drawing a line between the attitudes of host nations 

and American Gl's. Consequently, the problem continued throughout the next 

decade, always low key, never widespread, a problem of black morale inadequately treated by the department. 

The failure to solve the problem of racial discrimination overseas and, indeed, the inability to liquidate all remaining vestiges of discrimination within 

the military establishment, constituted the major shortfall of McNamara's equal 

70000 directive cited in Gesell Committee's " Final Report," p. 7; sec also New York Times, September 

12, 1963. 71

Ncw York Times and Washington Post. December 29, 1964. 72Sce, for example, New York Herald Tribune, January 3, 1965; New York Times, March 29. 1964. 

HMemo for Red, Timpanc, 25 Nov 64, ODASD (CR) files. 74Paul Memo. 
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE MILITARY COMMUNITY 579 

opportunity policy. With no attempt to shift responsibility to his 

subordinates/5 McNamara later reflected with some heat on the failure of his 

directive to improve treatment and opportunities for black servicemen substantially and expeditiously: ''I was naive enough in those days to think that all I 

had to do was show my people that a problem existed, tell them to work on it, 

and that they would then attack the problem. It turned out of course that not a 

god damn thing happened. '' 76 

Although critical of his department's performance, McNamara would probably admit that more than simple recalcitrance was involved. For example, the 

services' traditional opposition to outside interference with the development of 

their personnel policies led naturally to their opposition to any defense programs setting exact command responsibilities or dictating strict monitoring of 

their racial progress. Defense officials, respecting service attitudes, failed to demand an exact accounting. Again, the services' natural reluctance to court congressional criticism, a reluctance shared by McNamara and his defense colleagues, led them all to avoid unpopular programs such as creating ombudsmen 

at bases to channel black servicemen's complaints. As one manpower official 

pointed out, all commanders professed their intolerance of discrimination in 

their commands, yet the prospect of any effective communication be'tween these 

commanders and their subordinates suffering such discrimination remained 

unlikely. 77 Again defense officials, restrained by the Whtte House from antagonizing Congress, failed to insist upon change. 

Finally, while it was true ithat the services had not responded any better to 

McNamara's directive than to any of several earlier and less noteworthy calls for 

racial equality within the military community, it was not true that the reason for 

the lack of progress lay exclusively with the service. Against the background of 

the integration achievements of the previous decade, a feeling existed among 

defense officials that such on-base discrimination as remained was largely a matter of detail. Even Fitt shared the prevailing view. "In three years of close attention to such matters, I have observed [no] . . . great gains in on-base equality,'' 

because, he explained to his superior, "the basic gains were made in the 

1948-1953 period. " 78 It must be remembered that discrimination operating 

within the armed forces was less tractable and more difficult to solve than the 

patterns of segregation that had confronted the services of old or the off-base 

problems confronting them in the early 1960's. The services had reached what 

must have seemed to many a point of diminishing returns in the battle against 

on-base discrimination, a point at which each successive increment of effort 

yielded a smaller result than its predecessor. 

No one- not the Civil Rights Commission, the Gesell Committee, the civil 

rights organizations, and, judging from the volume of complaints, not even 

black servicemen themselves-seriously tried to disabuse these officials of their 

75For an example of McNamara's extremely self-critical judgments on the subject of equal opportunity, see 

Brock Brower, "McNamara Seen Now, Full Lent~th," Life 64 (M~y 10, 1968): 78. 

76Imcrv, author with McNamara, 11 May 72. 77Memo, William C. Baldes, ODASD (CR), for DASD (CR), 8 Jul63, ASD (M) 291.2. 78Memo, DASD (CR) for ASD (M), 2 Jul64, copy in CMH. Emphasis not in origi·nal. 
)80 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

USAF GROUND CREW, TAN SON NHUT AIR BASE, VIETNAM, relaxes over cards in 

the alert tent. 

satisfaction with the pace of reform. Certainly no one equated the importance of 

on-base discrimination with the blatant off-base discrimination that had captured everyone's attention. In fact, problems as potentially explosive as the 

discrimination in the administration of military justice were all but ignored during the 1960's.

79 

The sense of satisfaction that pervaded Fitt's comment, however understandable, was lamentable because it helped insure that certain inequities in the 

military community would linger. The failure of Negroes to win skilled job 

assignments and promotions, for example, would remain to fester and contribute significantly to the bitterness visited upon a surprised Department of 

Defense in later years. In brief, because the services had become a model of 

racial equality when judged by contemporary standards, the impulse of almost 

all concerned was to play down the reforms still needed on base and turn instead 

to the pressing and spectacular challenges that lay in wait outside the gates. 

7'>The administration of military justice was not considered by the Civil Rights Commission nor by the 

Gesell Committee, although it was mentioned once by the NAACP as a cause of numerous complaints and 

once by the Deputy Assistant Secretary lor Civil Rights in regard to black representation on courts-martial. See 

NAACP, "Proposals for Executive Action co End Federal Supported Segregation and Other Forms of Racial 

Discrimination,'' submiued co rhe White House on 29 Aug 61, White House Central Files, J. F. Kennedy 

Library; Memo, Philip M. Timpane, ODASD (Civ Pers, Indus Rcls, and CR) for DASD (Civ Pers, Indus Rels 

and CR), 23 Feb 65, sub: Representation by Race on Courts-Martial. ODASD (Civ Pers, Indus Rels, and CR) 

files. 
CHAPTER23 

From Voluntary Compliance to 

Sanctions 

The Defense Department's attitude toward off-base discrimination against 

servicemen underwent a significant change in the mid-1960's. At first Secretary 

McNamara relied on his commanders to win from the local communities a 

voluntary accommodation to his equal opponunity policy. Only after a lengthy 

interval, during which the accumulated evidence demonstrated that voluntary 

compliance would, in some cases, not be forthcoming, did he take up the 

cudgel of sanctions. His use of this powerful economic weapon proved to be circumscribed and of brief duration, but its application against a few carefully 

selected targets had a salubrious and widespread effect. At the same time 

developments in the civil rights movement, especially the passage of strong new 

le.gislation in 1964, permitted servicemen to depend with considerable assurance 

upon judicial processes for the redress of their grievances. 

Sanctions were distasteful, and almost everyone concerned was anxious to 

avoid their use. The Gesell Committee wanted them reserved for those 

recalcitrants who had withstood the informal but determined efforcs of local 

commanders to obtain voluntary compliance. McNamara agreed. " There were 

plenty of things that the commanders could do in a voluntary way," he said 

later, and he wanted to give them time "to get to work on this problem." 1 His 

principal civil rights assistants considered it inappropriate to declare businesses 

or local communities off limits while the services were still in the process of 

developing voluntary action programs and before the full impact of new federal 

civil rights legislation on those programs could be tested. As for the services 

themselves, each was on record as being opposed to any use of sanctions in equal 

opportunity cases. The 1963 equal opportunity directive of the Secretary of 

Defense reflected this general reluctance. It authorized the use of sanctions, but 

in such a carefully restricted manner that for three years agencies of the Department of Defense never seriously contemplated using them. 

Development of Voluntary Action Programs 

Despite this obvious aversion to the use of sanctions in equal opportunity 

cases, the public impression persisted that Secretary McNamara was trying to use 

military commanders as instruments for forcing the desegregation of civilian 

1

Interv, author with McNamara, II May 72. 

" 
582 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

communities. Actually, the Gesell Committee and the McNamara directive had 

demanded no such thing, as the secretary's civil rights deputy was repeatedly 

forced to point out. Military commanders, Fitt explained, were obligated to protect their men from harm and to secure their just treatment. Therefore, when 

"harmful civilian discrimination" was directed against men in uniform, "the 

wise commander seeks to do something about it.'' Commanders, he observed, 

did not issue threats or demand social reforms; they merely sought better conditions for servicemen and their families through cooperation and understanding. 

As for the general problem of racial discrimination in the United States, that 

was a responsibility of the civilian community, not the services. 2 

Exhibiting a similar concern for the sensibilities of congressional critics, 

Secretary McNamara assured the Senate Armed Services Committee that he had 

no plans "to utilize military personnel as a method of social reform." At the 

same time he reiterated his belief that troop efficiency was affected by segregation, and added that when such a connection was found to exist ''we should 

work with the community involved." He would base such involvement, he emphasized, on the commander's responsibility to maintain combat readiness and 

effectiveness. 3 Similar reassurances had to be given the military commanders, 

some of whom saw in the Gesell recommendations a demand for preferential 

treatment for Negroes and a level of involvement in community affairs that 

would interfere with their basic military mission.4 To counter this belief, Fitt 

an'd his successor hammered away at the Gesell Committee's basic theme: 

discrimination affects morale; morale affects military efficiency. The commander's activities in behalf of equal opportunity for his men in the community 

is at least as important as his interest in problems of gambling, vice, and public 

health, and is in furtherance of his military mission.~ 

McNamara's civil rights assistants tried to provide explicit guidance on the 

extent co which it was proper for base commanders to become involved in the 

community. Fitt organized conferences with base commanders to develop 

techniques for dealing with off-base discrimination, and his office provided 

commanders with legal advice to counter the arguments of authorities in 

segregated communities. Fitt also encouraged commanders to establish liaison 

with local civil rights groups whose objectives and activities coincided with 

d~partmental policy. At his request, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower Paul devised numerous special instructions and asked the services to issue 

regulations supporting commanders in their attempts co change community attitudes toward black servicemen. These regulations, in turn, called on commanders to enlist community support for equal treatment and opportunity 

2

See Memo, DASD (CR) for ASD (M), 2 Jul 64: Fitt, "Remarks Before the Civilian Aides Conference of 

the Secretary of the Army," 6 Mar 64; copies of both in CMH. The quoted passage is from the hitter 

document. 

>Robert S. McNamara, Testimony Before Senate Armed Services Committee, 3 Oct 63, quoted in New 

York Times, October4, 1963. 4

Memo, William C. Valdes, OASD (M), for Alfred B. Fitt, 8 Jul 63, sub: Case Studies of Minority Group 

Problems at Keesler AFB, Brook ley AFB, Greenville AFB, and Columbus AFB, copy in CMH. 

~See Shulman, ''The Civil Rights Policies of the Department of Defense,'' 4 May 65. 
FROM VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE TO SANCTIONS 583 

FIGHTER PILOTS ON THE LINE. Col. Daniel (Chappie) james, Jr., commander of a~ 

F-4 jet, and his pilot readying for takeoff from a field in Thailand. 

measures, utilizing in the cause their command-community relations committees. Consisting of base officials and local business and community leaders, 

these committees had originally been organized by the services to improve relations between the base and town. Henceforth, they would become the means by 

which the local commanders might introduce measures to secure equal treatment for servicemen.6 

Perhaps the most important, certainly most controversial, of Fitt's moves7 

was the establishment of a system to measure the local commanders' progress 

against off-base discrimination. His vehicle was a series of off-base equal opportunity inventories, the first comprehensive, statistical record of discrimination affecting servicemen in the United States. Based on detailed reports from 

6Memos: DASD (CR) for White, Assoc Spec Council to President, 9 Jul64; Philip M. Tim pane, Staff Asst, 

ODASD (CP, IR, & CR), for DASD (CP. JR. & CR). 11 Feb 65, sub: Service Reports on Equal Rights Activities; DASD (CP, IR, & CR) for John G. Stewart, 23 Dec 64, sub: Civil Rights Responsibilities of the 

Department of Defense. Copies of all in CMH. For a discussion of the composition and activities of these 

command-community relations committees and a critical analysis of the command initiatives in the local community in general, see David Sutton, "The Military Mission Against Off-Base Discrimination," Public 

Opinion anrllhe Mililary Euabluhmenl, ed. Charles C. Moskos, Jr. (Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications, 1971), pp. 149-83. 7See especially UPI Press Release, October 4. 1963; New York Times, October 3. 1963; Memo, Robert E. 

Jordan 111, Staff Asst. ODASD (CR), for ASD (M), 2 Oct 63, sub: Status of Defense Department Implementa· 

tion of DOD Directive 5120.36 ("Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces," July 26, 1963), ASD (M) 291.2 

(14 Jul63). 
584 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

every military installation to which 500 or more servicemen were assigned, the 

first inventory covered some 305 bases in forty-eight states and the District of 

Columbia and nearly 80 percent of the total military population stationed in the 

United States. Along with detailed surveys of public transportation, education, 

public accommodations, and housing, the inventory reported on local racial 

laws and customs, police treatment of black servicemen, the existence of state 

and local agencies concerned with equal opportunity enforcement, and the base 

commander's use of command-community relations committees.8 

The first inventory confirmed the widespread complaints of special 

discrimination encountered by black servicemen. It also uncovered interesting 

patterns in that discrimination. In matters of commercial transportation, local 

schools, and publicly owned facilities such as libraries and stadiums, the problem of discrimination against black servicemen was confined almost exclusively 

to areas around installations in the south. But segregated public accommodations such as motels, restaurants, and amusements, a particularly virulent form 

of discrimination for servicemen, who as transients had tO rely on such 

businesses, existed in all parts of the country including areas as diverse as Iowa, 

Alaska, Arizona, and Illinois. Discrimination in these states was especially 

flagrant since all except Arizona had legislation prohibiting enforced segregation of public accommodations. Discrimination in the sale and rental of houses 

showed a similar pattern. Only thirty installations out of the 305 reporting were 

located in states with equal housing opportunity statutes. These were in northern states, stretching from Maine to California. At the same time, some of these 

installations reported discrimination in housing despite existing state legislation 

forbidding such practices. No differences were reported in the treatment of 

black and white servicemen with respect to civilian law enforcement except that 

in some communities black servicemen were segregated when taken into custody 

for criminal violations. 

Generally, the practice of most forms of discrimination was more intense-in 

the south, but the record of other sections of the country was no better than 

mixed, even where legislation forbade such separate and unequal treatment. 

Obviously there was much room for progress, and as indicated in the inventory 

much still could be done within the armed forces themselves. The reports revealed that almost one-third of the commands inventoried failed to form the 

command-community relations committees recommended by the Gesell Committee and ordered in the services' equal opportunity directives. Of the rest, 

only sixty-one commands had invited local black leaders to participate in what 

were supposed to be biracial groups. 

The purpose of the follow-up inventories-three were due from each service 

at six-month intervals-was to determine the progress of local commanders in 

8Memo, ASD (M) for Under SA et al., 24 Sep 63, sub: Off-Base Equal Opportunity Inventory, ASD (M) 

291.2 (14 Jul 63); DASD (CR) "Summary of Off-Base Equal Opportunity Inventory Responses" (ca. Jan 64), 

cop.y inclosed with Ltr, DASD (CR) to Gesell, 2 Apr 64, Gesell Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library. For examples of service responses. see BuPers Instruction 5350.3. 3 Oct 63. and Marine Corps Order 5350.2, 1 Oct 

63. For derails of a service's experiences with conducting an off-base inventory. see the many documents in CS 

291.2 (23 Aug63). 
FROM VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE TO SANCTIONS 585 

achieving equal opportunity for their men. The Defense Department showed 

considerable energy in extracting from commanders comprehensive information 

on the state of equal opportunity in their communities.9 In fact, this rather 

public exposition proved to be the major reporting system on equal opportunity 

progress, the strongest inducement for service action, and the closest endorsement by the department of the Gesell Committee's call for an accountability 

system. 

The first follow-up inventory revealed some progress in overcoming 

discrimination near military installations, but progress was slight everywhere 

and in some areas of concern nonexistent. Discrimination in schooling for 

dependents off base, closely bound to the national problem of school desegregation, remained a major difficulty. Commanders reported that discrimination in 

public accommodations was more susceptible to command efforts, but here, 

too, in some parts of the country, communities were resisting change. A Marine 

Corps commander, for example, reported the successful formation of a 

command-community relations committee at his installation near Albany, 

Georgia, but to inquiries concerning the achievements of this committee the 

commander was forced to reply ''absolutely none.' '

10 

Some forms of discrimination seemed impervious to change. Open housing, 

for one, was the exception rather than the rule throughout the country. One 

survey noted the particular difficulty this created for servicemen, especially the 

many enlisted men who lived in trailers and could find no unsegregated place to 

park. 11 At times the commanders' effons to improve the situation seemed to 

compound the problem. The stipulation that only open housing be listed with 

base housing officers served more to reduce the number of listings than to create 

opportunities for open housing. Small wonder then that segregated housing, 

"the most pervasive and most intractable injustice of all," in Alfred Pitt's 

words, was generally ignored while the commanders and civil rights officials 

concentrated instead on the more easily surmountable forms of discrimination. 12 

At least part of the reason for the continued existence of housing discrimination against servicemen lay in the fact that the Department of Defense continued to deny itself the use of its most potent equal opportunity weapon. Well 

into 1964, Pitt could report that no service had contemplated the use of sanctions in an equal opportunity case. 13 Nor had 'housing discrimination ever 

figured prominently in any decision to close a military base. At Pitt's suggestion, Assistant Secretary Paul proposed that community discrimination patterns 

9see, for example, the following Memos: USAF Dep for Manpower, Personnel, and Organization for ASD 

(M}, 6 Feb 64, sub: Off-Base Equal Opportunity Inventory Report, SecAF files; DASD (CR) for Fridge, USAF 

Manpower Office, 14 May 64; idem for Davenport et al., 3 Aug 64, sub: Off-Base Equal Opportunity Inventory Follow-Up Reports. All in ASD (M) 291.2. 100ASD (CR), Summary of Follow-Up Off-Base Equal Opportunity Inventory (ca. Jun 64), DA.SD (CR) 

files. 11Memo, DASD (CP, IR, & CR) for Stewart, 23 Dec 64, sub: Civil Rights Responsibilities of the Department of Defense, copy in CMH. 12Ltr, Fiu to author, 22 May 72. 13Ltr, DASD (CR) to Congressman Charles Diggs, 3 Feb 64, copy in CMH. 
586 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

be listed as one of the reasons for closing military bases. 14 Although the Assistant Secretary for Installations and Logistics, Thomas D. Morris, agreed to consult such information during deliberations on closings, he pointed out that 

economics and operational suitability were the major factors in determining a 

base's value.D As late as December 1964, an official of the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense was publicly explaining chat I I discrimination in the community is certainly a consideration, but the military effectiveness and justification of an installation must be primary. " 16 

Clearly, voluntary compliance had its limits, and Fitt said as much on the occasion of his departure afFer a year's assignment as the civil rights deputy. 

Reviewing the year's activities for Gesell, Fitt concluded that "we have done 

everything we could think of'' in formulating civil rights policy and in 

establishing a monitoring system for its enforcement. He was confident that the 

department's campaign against discrimination had gained enough momentum 

to insure continued progress. If, as he put it, the "off-base lot of the Negro serviceman will not in my time be the same as that of his white comrade-in-arms'' 

he was nevertheless satisfied that the Department of Defense was committed to 

equal opportunity and that commitment was "bound to be beneficial." 17 

Fitt's assessment was accurate, no doubt, but not exactly in keeping with the 

optimistic spirit of the Gesell Committee and Secretary McNamara's subsequent 

equal opportunity commitment to the President. Obviously more could be 

achieved through voluntary compliance if the threat of legal sanctions were 

available. In the summer of 1964, therefore, the Defense Department's manpower officials turned to new federal civil rights legislation for help. 

Ct'vt'l Rights, 1964-1966 

The need for strong civil rights legislation had become increasingly apparent 

in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. 18 With that decision, the judicial 

branch finally lined up definitively with the executive in opposition to segregation. But the effect of this united opposition was blunted by the lack of a strong 

civil rights law, something that President Kennedy had not been able to wrestle 

from a reluctant legislative branch. The demands of the civil rights movement 

14Memo. DASD (CR) for ASD (M), 24 Apr 64. sub: Base Closings: Memo, ASD (M) for ASD (I&L), 29 

Apr 64, sub: Base Closing Decisions: both in ASD (M) 291.2. 

~Memo, ASD (!&L) for ASD (M), 23 May 64, sub: Base Closing Decisions, copy in CMH. 

16Ltt, Principal Asst for CR. DASD (CP, IR, & CR) to Stanley T. Gutman, 18 Dec 64, ASD (M) 291.2. 17Ltr, DASD (CR) to Gesell. 28 Jul 64, copy in CMH. 

18Benjamin Muse, The Americrm Negro Revolution: From Nonviolence to Black Power, 1963-1967 

(Bloomington: University of Indiana Press. 1968). The following survey is based on Muse and on Robert D. 

Marcus and David Burner, eds., America Since 1945 (New York: St. Martin's, 1972). especially the chapter by 

James Sundquist, "Building the Great Society: The Case of Equal Rights, From Politics and Policy," and that 

by Daniel Walker, "Violence in Chicago. 1968: The Walker Report": Report of the National Advisory Com· 

mission on Civ11 Disorders; Otis L. Graham, Jr., ed., Perspectives on 20th Century America, Readings and 

Commentary (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1973): Zinn, Postwar America, 1945-1971: Roger Beaumont, "The 

Embryonic Revolution: Perspectives on the 1967 Riots," in Robin Higham, ed., Bayonets in the Street: The 

Usc of Troops in Civil DisturbatJces (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1969): Woodward'sStrange Career 

of jim Crow. 
' 

FROM VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE TO SANCTIONS 587 

only underscored the inability of court judgments and executive orders alone to 

guarantee the civil rights of all Americans. Such a profound social change in 

American society required the concerted action of all three branches of government, and by 1963 the drive for strong civil rights legislation had made such 

legislation the paramount domestic political issue. Lyndon Johnson fully 

understood its importance. "We have tafked long enough in this country about 

equal rights,'' he told his old colleagues in Congress, ''we have talked for one 

hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it 

in the books of law.'' 19 

He was peculiarly fitted for the task. A southerner in quest of national support, Johnson was determined for very practical reasons to carry out the civil 

rights program of his slain predecessor and to end the long rule of Jim Crow in 

many areas of the country. He let it be known that he would accept no watereddown law. 

I made my position [on the civil rights bi11] unmistakably clear: We were not prepared to 

compromise in any way. ''So far as this administration is concerned,'' I told a press conference, ·'its position is firm.'' I wanted absolutely no room for bargaining .... I knew 

that the slightest wavering on my part would give hope to the opposition's strategy of 

amending the bi11 to death. 20 

Certainly this pronouncement was no empty rhetoric, coming as it did from a 

consummate master of the legislative process who enjoyed old and close ties with 

congressional leaders. 

Johnson was also philosophically committed to change. "Civil rights was 

really something that was, by this time, burning pretty strongly in Johnson," 

Harris L. Wofford later noted. 21 The new President exhorted his countrymen: 

"To the extent that Negroes were imprisoned, so was I. ... to the extent that 

Negroes were free, really free, so was I. And so was my country. " 22 Skillfully 

employing the wave of sympathy for equal rights that swept the country after 

John Kennedy's death, President Johnson procured a powerful civil rights act, 

which he signed on 2 July 1964. n 

The object of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was no less than the overthrow of 

segregation in America. Its major provisions outlawed discrimination in places 

of amusement and public accommodation, in public education, labor unions, 

employment, and housing. It called for federal intervention in voting rights 

cases and established a Community Relations Service in the Department of 

Commerce to arbitrate racial disputes. The act also strengthened the Civil Rights 

Commission and broadened its powers. It authorized the United States Attorney General and private citizens to bring suit in discrimination cases, outlining the procedures for such cases. Most significant were the sweeping provisions 

1

9Lyndon B. Johnson, "Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress,'' 27 Nov 63. Public Papers of the 

Presidents: Lyndon B. johnson, 1963-1964 (Washington: Government Printing Office. 1965). 1:9. 20Lyndon B. Johnson, The Vantage Poim (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), p. 157. 21 Intetv, Bernhard with Wofford, 29 Nov 65. Special Assistant to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, Wof· 

ford was later appointed to a senior position in the Peace Corps. 22Johnson, Vantage Point, p. 160. 

23PL88-352, 78 U.S. Sw. 241. 
588 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

of the law's Title VI that forbade discrimination in any activity or program that 

received federal financial assistance. This added the threat of economic sanctions 

against any of those thousands of institutions, whether public or private, which, 

while enjoying federal benefactions, discriminated against citizens because of 

race. Accurately characterized as the "most effective instrument yet found for 

the elimination of racial discrimination, " 24 Title VI gave the federal government leave to cut segregation and discrimination out of the body politic. In Professor Woodward's words, ''a national consensus was in the making and a 

peaceful solution was in sight.' '

25 

The 1964 presidential election was at hand to test this consensus. Given the 

Republican candidate's vehement opposition to the Civil Rights Act, Lyndon 

Johnson's overwhelming victory was among other things widely interpreted as a 

national plebiscite for the new law. The President, however, preferred a broader 

interpretation. Believing that "great social change tends to come rapidly in 

periods of intense activity before the impulse slows,'' 26 he considered his victory 

a mandate for further social reform. On the advice of the Justice Department 

and the Civil Rights Commission, he called on Congress to eliminate the "barriers to the right to vote.'' 27 

In common with its predecessors, the 1964 Civil. Rights Act had only 

touched lightly on the serious obstacles in the way of black voters. Although 

some 450,000 Negroes were added to the voting rolls in the southern states in 

the year following passage of the 1964 law, the civil rights advocates were calling 

for stronger legislation. With bipartisan support, the President introduced a 

measure aimed directly at states that discriminated against black voters, providing for the abolition of literacy tests, appointment of federal examiners to 

register voters for all elections, and assignment of federal supervisors for those 

elections. The Twenty-fourth Amendment, adopted in February 1964, had 

eliminated the poll tax in federal elections, and the President's new measure 

carried a strong condemnation of the use of the poll tax in state elections as well. 

In all of his efforts the President had the unwitting support of the segregationists, who treated the nation to another sordid racial spectacular. In February 

1965 Alabama police jailed Martin Luther King, Jr., and some 2,000 members 

of his voting rights drive, and a generally outraged nation watched King's later 

clash with the police over a. voting rights march. This time he and his followers 

were stopped at a bridge in Selma, Alabama, by state troopers using tear gas and 

clubs. The incident climaxed months of violence that saw the murder of three 

civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi; the harassment of the Mississippi Summer Project, a voting registration campaign sponsored by several 

leading civil rights organizations; and ended in the assassination of a white 

24Muse, The American Negro RevolutiOtl, p. 183 . For a detailed discussion of the provisions of the Civil 

Rights Act of 1964, see Muse's book, pp. 181-91. 

25Woodward, Strange Career of Jim Crow, p. 180. 

26Johnson, "Remarks at the National Urban League's Community Action Assembly," 10 Dec 64, as 

reproduced in Public Papers of the Presidents: Johmon, 1963-1964. II: 1653. 

27Lyndon B. Johnson, "Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union," 4 Jan 65, Public Papers 

of the Presidems: Lyndon B. ]oht1!011, 1965 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1966), 1:6. 
FROM VOLUNTARY COMPliANCE TO SANCTIONS 589 

MEDICAL EXAMINATION. Navy doctor 

011 duty, Yokosuka, Japan. 

Unitarian minister, James Reeb, of 

Washington, D .C., one of the hundreds of clergymen, students, and other 

Americans who had joined in the King 

demonstrations. Addressing a joint session of Congress on the voting rights 

bill, the President alluded to the Selma 

incident, declaring: ''Their cause must 

be our cause too. Because it is not just 

Negroes, but really it is all of us who 

must overcome the crippling legacy of 

bigotry and injustice. And we shall 

overcome. " 28 

The President's bill passed easily 

with bipartisan support, and he signed 

it on 6 August 1965. Two days later 

federal examiners were on the job in 

three states. The act promised a tremendous difference in the political complexion of significant portions of the 

country. In less than a year federal examiners certified 124,000 new voters in four states and almost half of all eligible 

Negroes were registered to vote in the states and counties covered by the law. 

Another result of the new legislation was that the Attorney General played an 

active role in the 1966 defeat of the state poll tax laws in Harper v. Virginia 

Board of Elections. 29 

Useful against legalized discrimination, chiefly in the south, the civil rights 

laws of the mid-1960's were conspicuously less successful in those areas where 

discrimination operated outside the law. In the great urban centers of the north 

and west, home of some 45 percent of the black population, de facto segregation in housing, employment, and education had excluded millions of Negroes 

from the benefits of economic progress. This ghettoization, this failure to meet 

human needs, led to the alienation of many young Americans and a bitter 

resentment against society that was dramatized just five days after the signing of 

the 1965 voting rights act when the Wam section of Los Angeles exploded in 

flames and violence. There had been racial unrest before, especially during the 

two previous summers when flare-ups occurred in Cambridge (Maryland), 

Philadelphia, Jacksonville, Brooklyn, Cleveland, and elsewhere, but Watts was 

a different matter. Before the California National Guard with some logistical 

help from the Army quelled the riots, thirty-four people were killed , some 

4,000 arrested, and $35 million worth of property damaged or destroyed. The 

greatest civil disturbance since the 1943 Detroit riot, Wam was but the first in a 

28Lyndon B. Johnson. "Speech Before Joim Session of Congress," 1 ~ Mar 6~. Public Papen of the 

Presidents: johmon, 196). 1:284. 

29383 u.s. 663 (1966). 
590 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

series of urban disturbances which refuted the general belief that the race problem had been largely solved in cities of the north and the west. 30 

Discrimination in housing was a major cause of black urban unrest, and 

housing was foremost among the areas of discrimination still untouched by 

federal legislation. The housing provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was 

severely limited , and Johnson rejected the idea of yet another executive order 

proposed by his Committee on Equal Opportunity in Housing. Like the order 

signed by Kennedy, it could cover only new housing and even that with dubious 

legality. Johnson, relying on the civil rights momentum developed over the 

previous years, decided instead ro press for a comprehensive civil rights bill that 

would outlaw discrimination in the sale of all housing. The new measure was 

also designed ro attack several other residual areas of discrimination, including 

jury selection and the physical protection of Negroes and civil rights workers. 

Although he enjoyed a measure of bipartisan support for these latter sections of 

the bill, the President failed to overcome the widespread opposition to open 

housing, and the 1966 civil rights bill died in the Senate, thereby postponing an 

effective law on open housing until after the assassination of Dr. King in 1968 . 

The spectacle of demonstrators and riots in northern cities and the appearance in 1966 of the ''black power' ' slogan considered ominous by many 

citizens were blamed for the bill's failure. Another and more likely cause was 

that in violating the sanctity of the all-white neighborhood Johnson had gone 

beyond any national consensus on civil rights. In August 1966, for example, a 

survey by the Louis Harris organization revealed that some 46 percent of white 

America would object to having a black family as next-door neighbors and 70 

percent believed that Negroes ''were trying to move too fast.'' Of particular importance to the Department of Defense, which would be taking some equal opportunity steps in the housing field in the next months, was the fact that this 

opposition was not translated into a general rejection of the concept of equal opportunity. In fact, although the bill failed to win enough votes to apply the 

Senate's cloture rule, the President could boast that he won a clear majority in 

both houses. His defeat slowed the pace of the civil rights movement and 

postponed a solution to a major domestic problem; postponed , because, as Roy 

Wilkins reminded his fellow citizens at the time, "the problem is not going 

away ... the Negro is not going away. " 31 

The Civil Rights Act and Voluntary Compliance 

The enactment of new civil rights legislation in 1964 had thrust the armed 

forces into the heart of the civil rights movement in a special way. As Secretary 

McNamara himself reminded his subordinates, President Johnson was determined to have each federal department develop programs and policies that 

°For an accoum of the Waus riot and its aftermath. see Roben Conot, Riven of Blood, Years of Darkness 

(New York: Bantam Books. 1967). and Anthony Piau, cd. , The Politios of Riot Commissions (New York: Col· 

lin Books. 1971), ch. vi. 

31Both the Harris and Wilkins remarks arc quoted in Sundquist, "Building the Great Society, " pp . 

205-06. 
FROM VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE TO SANCTIONS 591 

would give meaning to the new legislation. That legislation, he added, created 

"new opportunities" to win full equality for all servicemen. The secretary made 

the usual connection between discrimination and m,ilitary efficiency, adding 

that "this reason alone" compelled departmental action. 32 Obviously other 

reasons existed, and when McNamara called on all commanders to support their 

men in the ''lawful assertion of the rights guaranteed'' by the act he was making 

his more than 300 local commanders agents of the new federal legislation. 

Defense officials quickly arranged for the publication of directives and 

regulations applying the provisions of the new law to the whole defense 

establishment. To insure, as McNamara put it, that military commanders 

understood their responsibility for seeing that those in uniform were accorded 

fair treatment as prescribed by the new law, Assistant Secretary Paul had already 

ordered the services to advise the rank and file of their rights and instruct commanders to seek civilian cooperation for the orderly application of the act to servicemen.H After considering the service comments solicited by his civil rights 

deputy, 34 Paul issued a departmental instruction on 24 July that prescribed 

specific policies and procedures for processing the requests of uniformed men 

and women for legal action under Titles II (Public Accommodations), III (Public 

Facilities), and IV (Public Education) of the act. The instruction encouraged, 

but did not compel, the use of command assistance by servicemen who wished 

to request suit by the U.S. Attorney General_3) 

Finally in December, McNamara issued a directive spelling out his department's obligations under the act's controversial Tide VI, Non-discrimination in 

Federally Assisted Programs. 36 This directive was one of a series requested by the 

White House from various governmental agencies and reviewed by the Justice 

Department and the Bureau of the Budget in an attempt to coordinate the 

federal government's activities under the far-reaching Title VI provisionY After 

arranging for the circulation of the directive throughout the services, Secretary 

McNamara explained in considerable detail how grants and loans of federal 

funds, transfer, sale, or lease of military property. and in fact any federal 

assistance would be denied in cases where discrimination could be found. 

Although this directive would affect the Department of Defense chiefly through 

)2Memo, SecDefforSAet al.. 10 Jul 64, copy in CMH; seealsoSccDef News Conference, I~ Jul64, p. 13, 

01\ SD (PA). 

HMemo, ASD (M) for Under SA ct al. , 6 Jul 64, ASD (M) 291.2; see also SecDd News Conference, I~ Jul 

64 .f.. 13. 

4Mcmo, D1\SD (CR) for Roy Davenport, ct al., 5 May 64, sub: Requests for Suit by Military Personnel 

Under the Civil Rights Bill; idem for ASD (M), 10 Jul64, sub: DOD Instruction on Processing of Requests by 

Military Personnel for the Bringing of Civil Rights Suits by the Anorney General: both in ASD (M) 291.2. For 

an example of a service response, sec Memo, Dep Under SA (Pers Management) for DASD (CR), 9 Jul 64, 

same sub, ASD (M) 291.2. 

HDOD lnstr 5525.2. 24 Jul 64. Processing of Requests by Military Personnel for Action by the Attorney 

General Under the Civil Rights Act; sec also Memo. ASD (M) for Under SA et al., 24 Jul 64. same sub, ASD 

(M) 291.2. 

)

6DOD Directive 5500.11, 28 Dec 64. 

)

7Memo, ASD (M) for Dir, BOB. 15 Jul64, sub: Defense Department Regulations to Implement Title VI 

of the Civil Rights Act: sec also Ltr, Spec Am to DASD (CR), to Gesell. 24 Jul 64; copies of both in Gesell 

Collection,]. 1'. Kennedy Library. 
592 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

the National Guard and various civil defense programs, it was nevertheless a 

potential source of economic leverage for use by the armed forces in the fight 

against discrimination. 38 Furthermore, this directive, unlike McNamara's equal 

opportunity directive of the previous year, was supported by federal legislation 

and thus escaped the usual criticism suffered by his earlier directives on 

discrimination. 

The Department of Defense's voluntary compliance program in off-base 

discrimination cases had its greatest success in the months following the passage 

of the Civil Rights Act. Given the passage of the act and other federal legislation, pronouncements of the federal courtS, and the broad advance of racial 

tolerance throughout the nation, the Defense Department's civil rights officials 

came to expect that most discrimination could be dealt with in a routine manner. As Robert E. Jordan III, a staff assistant to the department's civil rights 

deputy, put it, the use of sanctions would not "normally" be invoked when the 

Civil Rights Act or other laws could provide a judicial remedy. 39 Fitt predicted 

that only a ''very tiny number'' of requests by servicemen for suits under the act 

would ever be processed all the way through to the courts. He expected to see 

many voluntary settlements achieved by commanders spurred to action by the 

filing of requests for suit.40 

By early 1965 local commanders had made "very good progress," according 

to one Defense Department survey, in securing voluntary compliance with Title 

II of the act for public accommodations frequented by servicemen. Each service 

had reported "really surprising examples of progress" in obtaining integrated 

off-base housing in neighborhoods adjoining military installations and heavily 

populated by service families. The services also reported good progress in obtaining integrated off-duty education for servicemen, as distinct from their 

dependents in the public schools. 41 At the same time lesser but noticeable progress was reported in Titles II and III cases. In the first off-base inventory some 

145 installations in twenty states had reported widespread discrimination in 

nearby restaurants, hotels, bars, bowling alleys, and other Title II businesses; 

forty installations in nine states reported similar discrimination in libraries, city 

parks, and stadiums (Title Ill categories). Each succeeding inventory reported 

impressive reductions in these figures. 

Defense Department officials observed that the amount of progress depended considerably on the size of the base, its proximity to the local community, and the relationship between the commander and local leaders. Progress was 

most notable at large bases near towns. The influence of the Civil Rights Act on 

cases involving servicemen was also readily apparent. But above all, these officials pointed to the personal efforts of the local commander as the vital factor. 

Many commanders were able to use the off-base inventory itself as a weapon to 

3

8DASD (CP, IR, & CR), The Civil Rights Policies of the Department of Defense, 4 May 6~. copy in CMH. 

39Ltr, Jordan to William A. Smith, 21 Aug 64, ASD (M) 291.2. 40Memo, DASD (CR) for ASD (M), 10 Jul 64, sub: DOD Instruction on Processing of Requests by Military 

Personnel for the Bringing of Civil Rights Suits by the Attorney General. ASD (M) 291.2. 

41Mcmo, Timpane (Staff Asst) for Shulman, DASD (CP, IR, & CR), 11 Feb 65, sub: Service Reports on 

Equal Rights Activities, ASD (M) 291.2 . 
FROM VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE TO SANCTIONS 593 

fight discrimination, especial1y when the philosophy of "if everybody else 

desegregates I wil1" was so prevalent. Nor could the effect of commanders' 

achievements be measured merely in terms of hotels and restaurants open to 

black servicemen. The knowledge that his commander was fighting for his rights 

in the community gave a tremendous boost to the black serviceman's morale. It 

followed that when a commander successful1y forced a change in the practices of 

a business establishment, even one only rarely frequented by servicemen, he 

stirred a new pride and self-respect in his menY 

The Limits of Voluntary Compliance 

If the Civil Rights Act strengthened the hands of the commander, it also 

quickly revealed the ultimate limits of voluntary compliance itself. The campaign against Tides II and III discrimination was only one facet of the Department of Defense's battle against off-base discrimination, which also included 

major attacks against discrimination in the National Guard, in the public 

schools, and, finally, in housing. It was in these areas that the limits of voluntary 

compliance were reached, and the technique was abandoned in favor of 

economic sanctions. 

Because of its intimate connection with the Department of Defense, the National Guard appeared to be an easy target in the attack against off-base 

discrimination. Although Secretary McNamara had accepted his department's 

traditional voluntary approach toward ending. discrimination in this major 

reserve component,43 the possibility of using sanctions against the guard had 

been under discussion for some time. As early as 1949 the legal counsel of the 

National Guard Bureau had concluded that the federal government had the 

right to compel integration.

44 Essentially the same stand was taken in 1961 by 

the Defense Department's Assistant General Counsel for Manpower. 45 

These opinions, along with the 1947 staff study on the guard and the 1948 

New Jersey case, 46 provided support extending over more than a decade for the 

argument that the federal government could establish racial policies for the National Guard. Indeed, there is no evidence of opposition to this position in the 

1940's, and southern guard leaders openly accepted federal supremacy during 

the period when the Army and Air Force were segregated. But in the 1960's, 

42For discussion of command initiatives and black morale, sec Memo, DASD (CR) for Under SA ct al., 25 

May 64, sub: Off.Base Equal Opportunity Inventories; Fitt, "Remarks Before Civilian Aides Conference of 

the Secretary of the Army," 6 Mar 64; Memo, DASD (CR) for Burke Marshall, Dept of Justice, 20 Mar 64, 

sub: The Civil Rights of Negro Servicemen. Copies of all in CMH. 

43For the discussion of McNamara's initial dealings with the National Guard on the subject of race, see 

Cha,f4~~~~~ion of the Legal Adviser of the National Guard Bureau, April 1949," reproduced in Special Board 

to Study Negro Participation io the Army National Guard (ARNG) and the United States Army Reserve 

(USAR), "Participation of Negroes in the Reserve Components of the Army." 3 vols. (1967) (hereafter cited as Williams Board Rpt), II: 20-21. 

45Mcmo, Asst Gen Counsel (Manpower) for ASD (M), 17 Jul61, sub: Integration of National Guard, ASD 

(M) ~1.2. 4 For a discussion of earlier effortS tO integrate the New Jersey National Guard and the attitude of in· 

dividual stares toward Defense Department requests, see Chapter 12. 
594 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

AUTO PILOT SHOP. Airmen check out equipment, Biggs Air Force Base, Texas. 

long after the services had integrated their active forces and seemed to be moving toward a similar policy for the guard, doubts about federal authority over a 

peacetime guard appeared. The National Guard Bureau disputed the 1949 

opinion of its legal counsel and the more recent one from the Defense Department and stressed the political implications of forcing integration; a bureau 

spokesman asserted that ''an ultimatum to a governor that he must commit 

political suicide in order to obtain federal support for his National Guard will be 

rejected." Moreover, if federal officials insisted on integration, the bureau 

foresaw a deterioration of guard units to the detriment of national security. 47 

The National Guard Bureau supported voluntary integration, and its chiefs 

tried in 1962 and 1963 to prod state adjutants general into taking action on their 

own account. Citing the success some states, notably Texas, enjoyed in continuing the integration their units first experienced during federalized service in the 

Berlin call-up, Maj. Gen. D. W. McGowan warned other state organizations 

that outright defiance of federal authorities could not be maintained indefinitely and would eventually lead to integration enforced by Washington.48 

47Memo, Legal Adviser, NGB, for Bruce Docherty, Office of the General Counsel, DA, 19 Jul 63, sub: 

Authority to Require Integration in the National Guard, copy in CMH. 

48Ltrs, Chief, NGB, to AG's of Alabama ct al., 3 Mar 62, 3 Jul63. and 9 Dec 63; sec also Williams Board 

Rpt, II: 36. 
\ 

FROM VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE TO SANCTIONS 595 

Replies from the state adjutants varied, but in some cases it became clear that 

the combination of persuasion and quiet pressure might bring change. The 

Louisiana adjutant general, for example, reported that considering the feelings 

in his state's legislature any move toward integration would require "a selling 

job." At the same time, he carefully admitted, "some of these days, the thing 

[integration] is probably inevitable. • '

49 The adminiStration, however, continued 

to take the view that integration of the National Guard was a special problem 

because the leverage available to implement it was in no way comparable to the 

federal government's control over the active forces or the organized reserves. 

Progress toward total integration continued through 1963 and 1964 , 

although slowly. 50 Near the end of 1964, the National Guard Bureau announced that every state National Guard was integrated, though only in token 

numbers in some cases. H Even this slight victory could not be claimed by the 

Department of Defense or its National Guard Bureau, but was the result of the 

pressure exerted on states by the Gesell Committee. 

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 altered the Defense Department's attitude 

toward the National Guard. Title VI of the act undercut all arguments against 

federal supremacy over the guard, for it no longer mattered who bad technical 

responsibility for units in peacetime. In practical terms, the power to integrate 

clearly rested now with the federal government, which in a complete reversal of 

its earlier policy showed a disposition to use it. On 15 February 1965 Deputy 

Secretary of Defense Vance ordered the Army and Air Force to amend National 

Guard regulations to eliminate any trace of racial discrimination and "to ensure 

that the policy of equal opportunity and treatment is clearly stated. " 52 Vance's 

order produced a speedy change in the states, so much so that later in 1965 the 

Department of Defense was finally able to oppose New York Congressman 

Abraham J. Multer's biannual bill to withhold federal aid from segregated 

guard units on the grounds that there were no longer any such units. B 

Lack of equal opportunity in the National Guard might have been resented 

by civil rights groups, but black servicemen themselves suffered more generally 

49Ltr, Maj Gen Raymond H. Fleming, Adjutant General, Louisiana National Guard, to Chief, NGB, 16 

)ul 63. copy in CMH. 

5°See Memos: Chief, NGB. for Gen Counsel, DA, 22 Oct 63. sub: Current Status of Integration of National Guard in Ten Southern States; idem for DASD (CR). 30 Dec 63, sub: Year-End Report on Integration 

of Negroes in the National Guard; idem for Dcp Under SA (Manpower and Res Forces), 9 jan 64, sub: 

Meeting With National Chairman of the American Veterans Committee. Copies of all in CMH. 

H "Statement by Maj. Gen. Winston C. Wilson, Chief, National Guard Bureau Concerning Integration of 

the National Guard," 28 Dec 64, copy in CMH; sec also New York Times. December 30, 1964, and Williams 

Board Rpt, 11:38. 

HMemo, Dcp SccDef for SA and SecAF, I~ Feb 6~. sub: Equality of Opportunity in the National Guard , 

SD 291.2; sec also Memo, Chief. NGB, for Chief, Office of Reserve Components, 27 Jan 65. For examples of 

how Vance's order was transmitted to the individual states. see Texas Air National Guard Regulation 35-1, 17 

March 196~. and State of Michigan General Order No. 34. 2 July 1965. In March 1966 the Army and Air Force 

published a joint regulation outlining procedures to assure compliance with Title VI in the Army and Air Na· 

tiona! Guard and designating the Chief of the National Guard Bureau as the responsible official to implement 

departmental directives regarding all federally assisted activities of the National Guard. Sec National Guard 

Regulation 24, 30 Mar66. 

Bcongres~man Mulrer firsr introduced such a bill on 13 January 1949 anrl pressed, unsuccessfully, for 

similar measures in each succeeding Congress; sec Williams Board Rpt. II : 47-48. 
596 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

and more deeply from discrimination visited on their children. Alfred Fitt summarized these feelings in 1964: 

The imposition of unconstitutionally segregated schooling on their children is ,Particularly galling for the Negro servicemen. As comparative transients- and as milttary 

men accustom('d to avoiding controversy with civilian authorities-they cannot effectively sue for the constitutional rights of their sons and daughters. Yet they see their 

children, fresh from the integrated environment which is the rule on military installations, condemned to schools which are frequently two, even three grades behind the integrated schools these same children had attended on-base or at their fathers' previous 

duty stations. 54 

There was much to be said for the Defense Department's theory that an appeal for voluntary compliance would produce much integration in off-base 

schools attended by military dependents. That these children were the offspring 

of men serving in defense of their country was likely to have considerable impact 

in the south, especially, with its strong military traditions. That the children had 

in most cases already imended integrated schools, competing and learning with 

children of another race, was likely to make their integration more acceptable to 

educators. 

Beyond these special reasons, the services could expect help from new 

legislation and new administration rulings. The Civil Rights Act of 1960, for example, had authorized the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to 

provide integrated education for military dependents in areas where public 

schools were discontinued. In March 1962 Secretary of Health, Education, and 

Welfare Abraham Ribicoff announced that racially segregated schools were no 

longer "suitable" institutions under the terms of Public Laws 815 and 879 and 

that beginning in September 1963 his department would "exercise sound 

discretion, take appropriate steps'' to provide integrated education for military 

dependents. If the children were withdrawn from local school systems to achieve 

this, he warned, so too the federal aid. 5

5 Lending credence to Ribicoff's warning, his department undertook a survey in the fall of 1962 of selected military 

installations to determine the educational status of military dependents.

56 On 

17 September 1962 Attorney General Kennedy filed suit in Richmond to bar 

the use of federal funds in the segregated schools of Prince George County, 

Virginia, the location of Fort Lee. 57 Finally, in January 1963, the Department of 

Health, Education, and Welfare announced that unless state officials relented it 

would start a crash program of construction and operation of integrated schools 

for military dependents in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South 

Carolina. 58 

HMemo. DASD (CR) for Burke Marshall, 20 Mar 64, sub: The Civil Rights of Negro Servicemen, copy in 

CMH. 

55Ltr, Actg U.S. Comm of Ed to Superintendent of Public Instruction, Fla., et al., 6 Nov 62, with incls; 

see also Memo for Red, Evans, 20 Nov 62, sub: Schools for Dependents, copies of both in CMH. 

56AFNS, Release No. 2851, 17 Aug 62. 

5 7

Four similar suits were filed in January 1963 regarding segregation in Huntsville and Mobile, Alabama; 

Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi; and Bossier Parish, Louisiana. Ltr, Any Gen ro President, 24 Jan 63 (released 

by White House on 26 Jan 63), copy in CMH. See New York Times, September 18, 1962. 

58Washington Post, January 17, 1963. 
FROM VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE TO SANCTIONS 597 

Some local commanders took immediate advantage of these emotional appeals and administration pressures. The commandant of the Marine Corps 

Schools, Quantico, for example, won an agreement from Stafford County, 

Virginia, authorities chat the county would open its high school and two 

elementary schools co Marine Corps dependents without regard co race. The 

commandant also announced chat schools in Albany, Georgia, had agreed to 

cake military dependents on an integrated basis. 9 The Air Force announced that 

schools near Eglin. Whiting, and MacDill Air Force Bases in Florida as well as 

chose near six bases in Texas, including Sheppard and Connally, would integrate. The Under Secretary of the Navy reponed similar successes in school 

districts in Florida, Tennessee, and Texas. And the commander of Fort Belvoir 

started discussions with the Fairfax County, Virginia, school board looking 

coward the speedy desegregation of schools near the fore. 

Lest any commander hesitate, the Department of Defense issued a new 

policy in regard to the education of military dependents. On 15 July 1963 Assistant Secretary Paul directed all local commanders in areas where public education was still segregated- large parts of some fifteen states-co counsel parents 

on the procedures available for the transfer of their children to integrated 

schools, on how to appeal assignment co segregated schools, and on legal action 

as an alternative to accepting local school board decisions co bar their children.60 

In December 1963 Fitt drew up contingency plans for the education of dependent children in the event of local school closings.61 In April of 1964 Fitt 

reminded the services chat Defense Deparcment policy called for the placement 

of military dependents in integrated schools and that commanders were expected to make ' 'appropriate efforts'' on behalf of the children to eliminate any 

deviation from that policy. 62 In effect, base commanders were being given a 

specific role in the fight to secure for black and white dependents equal access to 

public schools. 

The action taken by base commanders under this responsibility might alter 

patterns of segregated education in some areas, but in the long run any attempt 

to integrate schools through a program of voluntary compliance appeared futile. 

At the end of the 1964 school year more chan 76.300 military dependents, including 6,177 black children. at forty-nine installations attended segregated 

schools. Another 14. 390 children on these same bases attended integrated 

)9Doth the Marine Corps and the Navy operated installations in the vicinity of Albany, Georgia. 60Mcmo, ASD (M) for SA ct al.. 15 Jul 63. sub: Assignment of Dependents of Military Personnel to Public 

Schools. ASD (M) 291.2. 61Memo, DASD (CR) for Under SecNav. 4 Dec 63, sub: Dependent Schooling in Closed School Disuicts; 

Memo, Asst SecNav for DASD (CR). 20 Dec 63. same sub; both in SecNav files, GenRccsNav. Sec also Memo. 

DASD (CR) for Burke Marshall ct al .. 9 Mar 64. sub: Possible September 1964 School Closings Affecting 

Military Dependents. copy in CMH. 62Memo, DASD (CR) for Under SA et al., 17 Apr 64. sub: Assignment of Dependents of Military Person· 

nclto Public Schools; see also idem for ASD (M). 2 Apr 64, sub: Segregated Schools and Military Dependents. 

For an example of how this new responsibility was conveyed to local commanders, sec BuPers Notice 5350.5, 

26 Jul63. "Assignment of Depend ems of Military Personnel to Public Schools." Copies of all in CMH. 
598 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

schools. usually grade school. on the military base itself. 

63 Because of the restrictions against base closings and off-limits sanctions, there was little hope that 

base commanders could produce any substantial improvement in this record. 

Firr admitted that the Department of Defense could not compel the integration 

of a school district. He recognized that it was impossible to establish an accredited twelve-grade system at the forty-nine installations, yet at the same time 

he considered it ''incompatible with military requirements'' to assign black servicemen with children to areas where only integrated schools were available. 

Even the threat to deny impacted-area aid was limited because in many communities the services' contracts with local school districts to educate dependent 

children was contingent on continuous federal aid . If the aid was stopped the 

schools would be closed, leaving service children with no schools to attend.64 

The only practical recourse for parents of military dependents, Fitt believed, 

was to follow the slow process of judicial redress under Title JV of the civil rights 

bill then moving through Congress. Anticipating the new law, Fitt asked the 

services to provide him with pertinent data on all school disrricts where military 

dependents attended segregated schools. He planned to use this information in 

cooperation with the Departments of Justice and Health, Education, and 

Welfare for use in federa l sujts. He also requested reports on the efforts made by 

local commanders to integrate schools used by dependent children and the 

responses of local school offic ials to such efforrs ~ Later, after the new law had 

been signed by the President, Norman Paul outlined for the services the procedures co be used for lodging complaints under Titles IV and VI of the Civil 

Rights Act and directed that local commanders inform all parents under their 

command of the remedies afforded them under the new legislation.

66 

With no prospect in sight for speedy integration of schools attended by 

military dependents, the Department of Defense summarily ended the attendance of uniformed personnel at all segregated educational institutions. With 

the close of the 1964 spring semester, Paul announced, no Defense Department 

funds would be spent to pay tuition for such schoolingY The economic pressure 

implicit in this ruling, which for some time had been applied to the education 

63Memo. DASD (CR) for Under SA et al., 25 May 64. sub: Off-Base Equal Opportunity lnvcnrories. copy 

inCMH. 

MFor an example of how these comracts for the education of dependents were tied to federal aid. see the 

case concerning Columbus Air Force Base. Mississippi, as discussed in Ltr, DASD (CR) to J. Francis Pohlhaus. 

NAACP. 5 Nov 63. For the views of the secretary's race counselor on the Fiu assessment, sec Ltr, Evans tO Mrs. 

Frank C. Eubanks, 10 jun 64. Copies of both in CMH. 

~Memo, DASD (CR) for Spec Asst tO SccAf for Manpower, Personnel, and Reserve Forces, 23 Jun 64, 

SecAF files. Similar memos were sent to the Army and Navy the same day. For an example of how these 

reports were used, sec Memo. Spec Asst to DASD (CR) for St. John Barrett, Civil Rights Div, Dept of Justice, 

20 Aug 64 , sub: Desegregation of Schools Serving Children of Shaw AFB, South Carolina, Personnel. Copies 

of all in CMH . 66Mcmo. ASD (M) for Under SA et al., 9 Aug 6S, sub: Assignment of Dependents of MiJirary Personnel to 

Public Schools, ASD (M) 291.2. 

67Mcmo. ASD (M} for SA ct al .. 2S Mar 64, sub: Non-Discrimination in Civil Schooling of Military Per· 

sonnet; Ltr. DASD (CR) to Congressman John Bell Williams of Mississippi, 18 Mar 64; Lrr, DASD (M) to Sen. 

Richard Russell of Georgia, 8 Jul 64; Memo. DASD (CR) for Roy Davenport et al .. 20 Apr 64. Copies of all in 

CMH. 
FROM VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE TO SANCTIONS 599 

of civilian employees of the department, allowed many base commanders to 

negotiate an end to segregation in off-base schools. 68 

The effort of the Department of Defense to secure education for its military 

dependents in integrated schools was, on the whole, unsuccessful. Integration, 

when it finally came to most of these institutions later in the 1960's, came principally through the efforts of the Department of Health, Education, and 

Welfare to enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Yet the role of local 

military commanders in the effort to secure integrated schools cannot be ignored, for with the development of a new policy toward off-base facilities in 

1963 the commander became a permanent and significant partner in the administration's fight to desegregate the nation's schools. In contrast to earlier 

times when the Department of Defense depended on moral suasion to 

desegregate schools used by servicemen's children, its commanders now 

educated parents on their legal rights, collected data to support class action 

suits, and negotiated with school boards. If the primary impetus for this activity 

was the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the philosophy of the Gesell Committee and 

the Secretary of Defense's directive were also implicit. 

Discrimination in the sale and lease of housing continued to be the most 

widespread and persistent form of racial injustice encountered by black servicemen, and a most difficult one to fight. The chronic shortage of on-base accommodations, the transient nature of a military assignment, and the general 

reluctance of men in uniform to protest publicly left the average serviceman at 

the mercy of local landlords and real estate interests. Nor did he have recourse in 

law. No significant federal legislation on the subject existed before 1969, and 

state laws (by 1967 over half the states had some form of prohibition against 

discrimination in public housing and twenty-one states had open housing laws) 

were rather limited, excluding owner-occupied dwellings, for example, from 

their provisions. Even President Kennedy's 1962 housing order was restricted to 

future building and to housing dependent on federal financing. 

Both the Civil Rights Commission and the Gesell Committee studied the 

problem in some detail and concluded that the President's directive to all 

federal agencies to use their "good offices" to push for open housing in federally supported housing had not been followed in the Department of Defense. 

The Civil Rights Commission, in particular, painted a picture of a Defense 

Department alternating between naivete and indifference in connection with 

the special housing problems of black servicemen.69 White House staffer Wof68Memo, Tim pane for DASD (CP, IR, & CR). II Feb 65, sub: Service Repons on Equal Rights Activities. 

In a related action the dcpanmem made military facilities available for the usc of the College Entrance Ex· 

amination Board when that body was confronted with segregated facilities in which tO administer irs tesrs; see Memos, Dcp Chief, Pers Services Div, US.AF, for AFLC et al., 8 Mar 63, sub: College Entrance Examinations. 

and Evans for DASD (M), 15 jan 63, sub: College Entrance Examination Board Communication. Fitt opposed 

this policy on the grounds that it removed a wholesome pressure on the segregated private facilities; see Memo. DASD (CR) for ASD (M), 2 Mar 64, sub: College Entrance Examinations ar Military Insrallations. Fin was overruled, and the military facilities were provided for the college entrance examinations; sec Ltr, Regional 

Dtr, College Entrance Examination Bd, to Evans, 13 Apr 64. Copies of all in CMH. 

69Mcmo, ASD (CR) for SecDef. 29 Oct 63. sub: Family Housing and the Negro Serviceman. Civil Rights 

Commission Staff Report; Memo. ASD (M) for SecDef, 2 Nov 63. sub: Family Housing for Negro Servicemen; 

both in ASD (M) 291.2. 
600 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

SUBMARINE TENDER DUTY. A sent'or chief boatswat'n mate and master diver at his 

station on the USS Hunley. 

ford later decided that the Secretary of Defense was dragging his feet on the subject of off-base housing, although Wofford admitted that each federal agency 

was a forceful advocate of action by other agencies. 70 

The Assistant Secretary for Manpower conceded in November 1963 that little had been done, but, citing the widely misunderstood off-base inventory, he 

pleaded the need to avoid retaliation by segregationist forces in Congress both 

on future authorizations for housing and on the current civil rights legislation. 

He recommended that the Department of Defense complete and disseminate to 

local commanders information packets containing relevant directives, statistics, 

and legal procedures available in the local housing field. 71 

McNamara approved this procedure, again investing local commanders with 

responsibility for combating a pervasive form of discrimination with a voluntary 

compliance program. Specifically, local commanders were directed to promote 

open housing near their bases, expanding their open housing lists and pressing 

70Jmcrv, Bernhard with Wofford, 29 Nov 65. p. 60. 71Memo, ASD (M) for SccDcf, 2 Nov 63. sub: Family Housing for Negro Servicemen, ASD (M) 291.2 . 
FROM VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE TO SANCTIONS 601 

the problem of local housing discrimination on their biracial community committees for solution. They were helped by the secretary's assistants. His civil 

rights and housing deputies became active participants in the President's housing committee, transmitting to local military commanders the information and 

techniques developed in the executive body. McNamara's civil rights staff inaugurated cooperative programs with state and municipal equal opportunity 

commissions and other local open housing bodies, making these community 

resources available to local commanders. Finally, in February 1965, the Department of Defense entered into a formal arrangement with the Federal Housing 

Administration to provide commanders with lists of all housing in their area 

covered by the President's housing order and to arrange for the lease of foreclosed Federal Housing Authority properties to military personnel. 72 

These activities had little effect on the military housing situation. An occasional apartment complex or trailer court got integrated, but no substantial progress could be reported in the four years following Secretary McNamara's 1963 

equal opportunity directive. On the contrary, the record suggests that many 

commanders, discouraged perhaps by the overwhelming difficulties encountered in the fair housing field, might agree with Fitt: "I have no doubt that 

I did nothing about it [housing discrimination] in 1963-4 because I was working on forms of discrimination at once more blatant and easier to overcome. I 

did not fully understand the impact of housing discrimination, and I did not 

know what to do about it.' ' 73 

A special Defense Department housing survey of thirteen representative 

communities, including a study of service families in the Washington, D.C., 

area, documented this failure. The survey described a housing situation as of 

early 1967 in which progress toward open off-base housing for servicemen was 

minimal. Despite the active off-base programs sponsored by local commanders, 

discrimination in housing remained widespread, 74 and based on four years' experience the Department of Defense had to conclude that appeals to the community for voluntary compliance would not produce integrated housing for 

military families on a large scale. Still, defense officials were reluctant to 

substitute more drastic measures. Deputy Secretary Vance, for one, argued in 

early 1967 that nationwide application of off-limits sanctions would raise significant legal issues, create chaotic conditions in the residential status of all military 

personnel, downgrade rather than enhance the responsibility of local commanders to achieve their equal opportunity goals, and, above all, fail to produce 

more integrated housing. Writing to the chairman 'of the Action Coordinating 

Committee to End Segregation in the Suburbs (ACCESS), ~ he asserted that 

72Ltr, DASD {CR) to Chmn, President's Cmte on Equal Opportunity in Housing, 19 Sep 63, copy in 

CMH; sec also Paul Memo. 

Hltr, Fitt to author. 22 May 72. 

74Ltr, Dcp SecDcf to J. Charles Jones, Chairman, ACCESS. 21 Feb 67, copy in CMH; see also the detailed 

account o£ the Department of Defense's housing campaign in Bahr, "The Expanding Role of the Department 

of Dcfcnse," p. 10). 

n ACCESS was one of the several local, biracial open-housing groups that sprang up to fight discrimina· 

tion in housing during rhe mid-1960's. The center of this particular group's concern was in the Washington, 

D.C., suburbs. 
602 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

open housing for servicemen would be achieved only through the ''full commitment at every level of command to the proposition of equal treatment.' '

76 

But even as Vance wrote, the department's housing policy was undergoing 

substantial revision. And, ironically, it was the very group to which Vance was 

writing that precipitated tihe change. It was the members of ACCESS who 

climaxed their campaign against segregated apartment complexes in the 

Washington suburbs with a sit-down demonstration in McNamara's reception 

room in the Pentagon on 1 February, bringing the problem to the personal attention of a Secretary of Defense burdened with Vietnam.77 Although strongly 

committed to the principle of equal opportunity and always ready to support 

the initiatives of his civil rights assistants, 78 McNamara had largely ignored the 

housing problem. Lacer he castigated himself for allowing the problem to drift 

for four years. 

I get charged with the TFX. It's nothing compared to the Bay of Pigs or my failure for 

four years to integrate off-base military housing. I don't want you to misunderstand me 

when I say this, but the TFX was only money. We're talking about blood, the moral 

foundation of our future, the life of the nation when we talk about these things. 79 

McNamara was being unnecessarily harsh with himself. There were several 

reasons, quite unrelated to either the Secretary of Defense or his assistants, that 

explain che failure of voluntarism to integrate housing used by servicemen . A 

major cause-witness the failure of President Johnson's proposed civil rights bill 

in 1966-was that open housing lacked a national consensus or widespread 

public support. Voluntary compliance was successful in other areas, such as 

public accommodation, transportation, and to some extent even in dependent 

schooling, precisely because the requests of local commanders were supported 

by a growing national consensus and the force of nationallegislacion. In dealing 

with housing discrimination, however, these same commanders faced public indifference or open hostility without the comforting support of federal law. Even 

with the commander's wholehearted commitment to open housing, a commitment that equal opportunity directives from the services could by no means insure, his effectiveness against such widespread discrimination was questionable. 

Nothing in his training prepared him for the delicate negotiations involved in 

obtaining integrated housing. Moreover, it was extremely difficult if not impossible to isolate the black serviceman's housing plight from that of other black 

citizens; thus, an open housing campaign really demanded comprehensive action by the whole federal government. The White House had never launched a 

national open housing campaign; it was not, indeed, until 16 February 1967 

that President Johnson submitted a compulsory national open housing bill to 

Congress. 

80 

76Ltr, Dcp SccDefto Jones, 21 Feb 67, copy in CMH. 77Ltr, Fitt to author, 22 May 72; sec also New York Timer and Washington Pori. February 2, 1967. 78Roben E. Jordan, former DASD (CR) assistant, described the secretary's eagerness to support civil rights 

initiatives: "He would hardly wait fo r an explanation, but stan murmuring, 'Where do I sign, where do I 

sign?' "lnterv, author with Jordan, 7 jun72. 79Quoted by Brower, "McNamara Seen Now, Full Length," p. 78 . The TFX mentioned by McNamara was an allusion to the heated and lengthy controversy that arose during his administration over fighter aircraft 

for the Navy and Air Force. 

801\ weakened version of rhis bill eventually emerged as the Civil Rights Act of 1968. 
FROM VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE TO SANCTIONS 603 

Whatever the factors contributing to the lack of progress, McNamara admitted that "the voluntary program had failed and failed miserably. " 81 

Philosophically, Robert MeN amara found this situation intolerable. He had 

become interested in the "unused potential" of his department to change 

American society as it affected the welfare of servicemen. As Fitt explained, the 

secretary believed 

any department which administers 10% of the gross national product, with influence 

over the lives of 10 million people, is bound to have an impact. The question is whether 

it's going to be a dumb, blind impact, or a marshaled and ordered impact. 

McNamara wanted to marshal that impact by committing defense resources to social 

goals that were still compatible with the primary mission of security. 82 

Clearly. the Secretary of Defense considered open housing for service 

families one of these goals. and when his attention was drawn to the immediacy 

of the problem by the ACCESS demonstration he acted quickly. At his instigation Vance ordered the local commanders of all services to conduct a nationwide 

census of all apartment houses. housing developments, and mobile home courts 

consisting of five or more rental units within normal commuting distance of all 

installations having at least 500 servicemen. He also ordered the commanders to 

talk to the owners or operators of these properties personally and to urge them to 

open their properties to all servicemen. He organized an Off-base Equal Opportunity Board, consisting of the open housing coordinators of each service and his 

office to monitor the census. Finally, he announced the establishment of a 

special action program under the direction of Thomas D. Morris, now the Assistant Secretary for Manpower. Aimed at the Washington, D.C., area specifically, 

the program was designed to serve as a model for the rest of the country. 8> 

Vance also notified the service secretaries that subsequent to the census all 

local commanders would be asked to discuss the census findings with local community leaders in an effort to mobilize support for open housing. Later Assistant Secretary Morris, with the help of the acting civil rights deputy, L. Howard 

Bennett, spelled out a program for "aggressive" negotiation with community 

leaders and cooperation with other government agencies, in effect a last-ditch 

attempt to achieve open housing for servicemen through voluntary compliance. 

Underscoring the urgency of the housing campaign, the department demanded 

a monthly report from all commanders on their open housing activities,84 and 

Morris promptly launched a proselytizing effort of his own in the metropolitan 

Washington area. Described simply by McNamara as "a decent man," Morris 

spoke indefatigably before civil leaders and realtors on behalf of open housing. 8) 

81McNamara, TheEssetJceofSecurity, p. 124. 82Quoted by Brower, "McNamara Seen Now, Full Length," p. 89. 

83Memo, Dcp Sec De£ for Sccys of Military Departments. 11 Apr 67, sub: Equal Opportunity for Milirary 

Personnel in Rental of Off-Base Housing. Vance's. instructions were spelled our in great detail, replete with 

charts and forms, in Memo, ASD (M) for Dep Under Secys of Military Departments (Manpower), 22 Apr 67, 

same sub. Copies of both in CMH. 84Memos, ASD (M) for Dep Under Seeys of Military Departments, 22 Apr and 17 Jul 67, sub: Equal Op· 

portunity for Military Personnel in Rental of Off-Base Housing. For the effect of this order on an individual 

commander, see article by Charles Hunter in Charleston, South Carolina, Post, August 30, 1967. See also Interv, author with Bennett, 13 Dec 73. 

S)lntervs, author with McNamara, II May 72, and Jordan, 7 Jan 72 . 
604 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

The department's national housing census confirmed the gloomy statistics 

projected from earlier studies indicating that housing discrimination was 

widespread and intractable and damaging to servicemen's morale.86 McNamara 

decided that local commanders ''were not going to involve themselves,'' and for 

the first time since sanctions were mentioned in his equal opportunity directive 

some four years before, he decided to use them in a discrimination case. The 

Secretary of Defense himself, not the local commander nor the service 

secretaries, made the decision: housing not opened to all servicemen would be 

closed to all servicemenY Aware of the controversy accompanying such action, 

the secretary's legal counsel prepared a justification. Predictably, the department's lawyer argued that sanctions against discrimination in off-base housing 

were an extension of the commander's traditional right to forbid commerce with 

establishments whose policies adversely affected the health or morals of his men. 

Acutely conscious of the lack of federal legislation barring housing discrimination, Vance and his legal associates were careful to distinguish between an 

owner's legal right to choose his tenants and the commander's power to impose 

a military order on his men. 

Although committed to a nationwide imposition of sanctions on housing if 

necessary, the Secretary of Defense hoped that the example of a few cases would 

be sufficient to break the intransigence of offending landlords; certainly a successful test case would Strengthen the hand of the commanders in their negotiations with community leaders. Metropolitan Washington was the obvious area 

for the first test case, and the Maryland General Assembly further focused attention on that region when on 28 February 1967 it called on the Secretary of 

Defense to end housing discrimination for all military personnel in the state. 

88 

On the night of 21 June, Gerhard Gesell received an unexpected phone call: 

there would be something in tomorrow's paper, Robert McNamara told him, 

that should be especially interesting to the judge.89 And there was, indeed, on 

the front page. As of 1 July, all military personnel would be forbidden to lease 

or rent housing in any segregated apartment building or trailer court within a 

three-and-a-half-mile radius of Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland. Citing the 

special housing problems of servicemen returning from Vietnam, McNamara 

pointed out that in the Andrews area of Maryland less than 3 percent of some 

22,000 local apartment units were open to black servicemen. The Andrews 

situation, he declared, was c.ausing problems "detrimental to the morale and 

welfare of the majority of our Negro military families and thus to the operational effectiveness of the base.' ' 90 

86McNamara, The Essence of Security, p. 126. 

87lnterv, author with McNamara, J l May 72. 88Joint Resolution 47 of the Maryhtnd General Assembly as cited in Memo, SecDef for Secretaries of 

Military Departments, 22 Jun 67, sub: Unsatisfactory Housing of Negro Milirary Families Living Off-Post in 

the Andrews Air Force Base Area. copy in CMH. See also New York Ti111es. May 26, 1967 , and Yarmolinsky, 

The Milita1y Establishment, p. 3)2. 

89lntcrv, author with Gesell, 3 Nov 74. 

9°Memo, SecDcf for Secretaries of Military Dcparrmcnrs, 22 Jun 67. sub: Unsatisfactory Housing of Negro 

Military Families Living Off-Post in the Andrews Air Force Base Area, SO files. The quotation is fro.n 

McNamara's News Conference. 22 June 1967 , as quoted in the New York Times. June 23, 1967. 
FROM VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE TO SANCTIONS 605 

The secretary's rhetoric, skillfully justifying sanctions in terms of military efficiency and elementary fairness for returning combat veterans, might have explained the singular lack of adverse congressional reaction to the order. No less a 

personage than Chairman L. Mendel Rivers of the House Armed Services Committee admitted that he had no objection to the sanctions near Andrews. Asked 

about possible sanctions elsewhere, Rivers added that he would cross that bridge 

later.9 1 

Rivers and his congressional allies would have little time for reflection, 

because McNamara quickly made it clear that the Andrews action was only a first 

step. Sanctions were imposed in rapid succession on areas surrounding four 

other military installations in Maryland, Fore George G. Meade, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Edgewood Arsenal, and Fore Holabird.92 More pressure was placed 

on segregationists when McNamara announced on 8 September his intention to 

extend the sanctions nationwide. He singled out California, where the Defense 

Department census had shown black servicemen barred from a third of all rental 

units, for special attention. In fact, off-limits sanctions imposed on broad 

geographical areas were used only once more-in December 1967 against multiple rental properties in the northern Virginia area.93 In the meantime, the 

Department of Defense had developed a less dramatic but equally effective 

method of exerting economic pressure on landlords. On 17 July 1967 McNamara 

ordered the establishment of housing referral offices at all installations where 

more than 500 men were assigned. All married servicemen seeking off-base 

housing were r<4quired to obtain prior clearance from these offices before entering into rental agreements with landlords. 

94 

Finally, in the wake of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and the 

Supreme Court's ruling against housing discrimination in jones v. Mayer, McNamara's succ~ssor, Clark M. Clifford, was able to combine economic threats 

with new legal sanctions against landlords who continued to discriminate. On 

20 June 1968 Clifford ordered the services to provide advice and legal assistance 

to servicemen who encountered discrimination in housing. The services were 

also to coordinate their housing programs with the Departments of Housing and 

Urban Development and Justice, provide assistance in locating nondiscriminatory rental units, and withhold authorization for servicemen to sign 

leases where discriminatory practices were evident. In a separate action the manpower assistant secretary also ordered that housing referral offices be established 

on all bases to which 100- as opposed to the earlier 500- military personnel 

were assigned. 9) 

91New York Times, June 23, 1967. Rivers did criticize later applications of the housing sanctions; see Washington Post, December 28, 1977. 

92 Actually, McNamara imposed the sanctions in the first two instances, the Secretary of the Army in the 

other two. 

93000 News Release No. 1209-67, 26 Dec 67. 

94Mcmo, SecDef for Service Secys ct al., 17 Jul 67. sub: Qff.Base Housing Referral Services, SO files. 9)ln]ones v. Mayer (392 U.S. 409, 421 (1968)) the Supreme Court held that the Civil Rights Act of 1968 

"bars all racial discrimination. private as well as public, in the sale or rental of property." For Clifford's 

response, sec Memo, SccDef for Sccys of Military Departments, et al., 20 Jun 68; Clark Clifford, News Con· 

fercncc, 20 Jun 68; Memo, ASD (M&RA) for Sccys of Military Departments, et al.. 25 Nov 68. For instructions 
606 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

FIRST AID. Soldier of the 23d Infantry gives water to heat stroke victim during 

"Operation Wahiawa," Vietnam. 

The result of these directives was spectacular. By June 1968 the ratio of offbase housing units carried on military referral listings- that is, apartment and 

trailer court units with open housing policies assured in writing by the owner or 

certified by the local commander- rose to some 83 percent of all available offbase housing for a gain of 24 7,000 units over the 1967 inventory .

96 In the suburban Washington area alone, the number of housing units opened to all servicemen rose more than 300 percent in 120 days- from 15,000 to more than 

50,000 units.97 By the end of 1968 some 1.17 million rental units, 93 percent of 

all those identified in the 1967 survey, were open to all servicemen.98 Still, these 

impressive gains did not signal the end of housing discrimination for black servicemen. The various Defense Department sanctions excluded dwellings for 

four families or less, and the evidence suggests that the original and hastily compiled off-base census on which all the open housing gains were measured had ignored some particularly intransigent landlords in larger apartment houses and 

operators of trailer courts on the grounds that their continued refusal to 

concerning legal assistance to servicemen and civilian employees of the Department of Defense under the 1968 

Civil Rights Act, see DOD lnsu 1338. 12,8 Aug 68. Copy of all in CMH. 

96sccDef News Conference, 29 Jun 68, transcript in CMH. 

97McNamara, The Essence of Security, p. 127. 

98Bahr. " The Expanding Role of the Department of Defense, " p. 123. 
FROM VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE TO SANCTIONS 607 

negotiate with commanders had made the likelihood of integrating their properties extremely remote. 

The campaign for open housing is the most noteworthy chapter in the fight 

for equality of treatment and opportunity for servicemen. The efforts of the 

Department of Defense against other forms of off-base discrimination were to a 

great extent successful because they coincided with court rulings and powerful 

civil rights legislation. The campaign for open housing, on the other hand, was 

launched in advance of court and congressional action and in the face of much 

popular feeling against integrated housing. McNamara's fight for open housing 

demonStrates, as nothing had before, his determination to use, if necessary, the 

department's economic powers in the civilian community to secure equal treatment and opportunity for servicemen. In the name of fair housing, McNamara 

invested not only his own prestige but also the Defense Department's manpower and financial resourc~s. In effect, this willingness to use the extreme 

weapon of off-limits sanctions revitalized the idea of using the Department of 

Defense as an instrument of social change in American society. 

McNamara's willingness to push the department beyond the national consensus on civil rights (as represented by the contemporary civil rights laws) also 

signified a change in his attitude. Unlike Yarmolinsky and Robert Kennedy, 

McNamara limited his attention to discrimination's effect on the individual serviceman and, ultimately, on the military efficiency of the armed forces. Despite 

his interest in the cause of civil rights, he had, until the open housing campaign, 

always circumscribed the department's equal opportunity program to fit a more 

traditional definition of military mission. Seen in this light, McNamara's attack 

against segregated housing represented not only the substitution of a new and 

more powerful technique-sanctions-for one that had been found wanting-voluntary compliance, but also a substantial evolution in his own social 

philosophy. He later implied as much. 

We request cooperation and seek voluntary compliance [in obtaining open housing] .... I am fully aware that the Defense Department is not a philanthropic foundation or a social-welfare institution. But the Department does not intend to let our Negro 

servicemen and their families continue to suffer the injustices and indignities they have 

in the past. I am certain my successors will pursue the same policy.99 

By 1967 the major programs derived from Secretary McNamara's equal opportunity policy had been defined, and the Department of Defense could look 

back with pride on the substantial and permanent changes it had achieved in 

the treatment of black servicemen in communities near military bases. 100 Emphasizing voluntary compliance with its policy, the department had proved to 

be quite successful in its campaign against discrimination in off-base recreation, 

public transportation and accommodation, in the organized reserves, and even, 

to a limited extent, in off-base schools. It was logical that the services should 

seek voluntary compliance before resorting to more drastic methods. As the 

99McNamara, TheEssenceofSecurtiy, p. 127 . 10'7his analysis owes much to the :author's correspondence with Alfred Fitt and the interviews with 

McNamara, Gesell, and Jordan. See also Memo, Timpane for Stephen Schulman. 11 Feb 65, sub: Service 

Reports of Equal Rights Activities, and Paul Memo. Copies of all in CMH. 
608 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Gesell Committee had pointed out, base commanders had vast influence in 

their local communities, influence that might be used in countless ways to alter 

the patterns of off-base discrimination. For the first time the armed forces had 

fought discrimination by making the local commander responsible for a 

systematic program of negotiations in the community. 

But voluntary compliance had its limits. Its success depended in large 

measure on the ability and will of local commanders, who, for the most part, 

were unprepared by training or temperament to deal with the complex and explosive problems of off-base discrimination. Even if the commander could 

qualify as a civil rights reformer, he had little time or incentive for a duty that 

would go unrecognized in terms of his efficiency rating yet must compete for his 

attention with other necessary duties that were so recognized. Finally, the successful use of voluntary compliance techniques depended on the implied threat 

of legal or economic_ pressures, yet, for a considerable period following 

McNamara's 1963 directive, no legal strictures against some forms of discrimination existed, and the use of economic sanctions had been so carefully circumscribed by defense officials as to render the possibility of their use extremely 

remote. 

The decision to circumscribe the use of economic sanctions against off-base 

discrimination made sense. Closing a base because of discrimination in nearby 

communities was practically if not politically impossible and might conceivably 

become a threat to national security. As to sanctions aimed at specific 

businesses, the secretary's civil rights assistants feared the possibility that the 

abrupt or authoritarian imposition of sanctions by an insensitive or unsympathetic commander might sabotage the department's whole equal opportunity program in the community. They were determined to leave the 

responsibility for sanctions in the hands of senior civilian officials. In the end it 

was the most senior of these officials who acted. When his attention turned to 

the problem of discrimination in off-base housing for black servicemen in 1967, 

Secretary McNamara quickly decided to use sanctions against a discriminatory 

practice widely accepted and still legal under federal law. 

The combination of voluntary compliance techniques and economic sanctions, in tandem with the historic civil rights legislation of the mid-1960's, succeeded in eliminating most of the off-base discrimination faced by black servicemen. Ironically, in view of its unquestioned control in the area, the Department of Defense failed to achieve an equal success against discrimination within 

the military establishment itself. Complaints concerning the number, promotion, assignment, and punishment of black servicemen, a limited problem in_ 

the mid-1960's, went mostly unrecognized. Relatively speaking, they were ignored by the Gesell Committee and the civil rights organizations in the face of 

the more pressing off-base problems and only summarily treated by the services, 

which remained largely silent about on-base and in-house discrimination. Long 

after off-base discrimination had disapp~ared as a specific military problem, this 

neglected on-base discrimination would rise up again to trouble the armed 

forces in more militant times. 101 

IOIJnterv, author with Bennett, 13 Dec 73. 
CHAPTER24 

Conclusion 

The Defense Department's response to the recommendations of the Gesell 

Committee marked the close of a well-defined chapter in the racial history of the 

armed forces. Within a single generation, the services had recognized the rights 

of black Americans to serve freely in the defense of their country, to be racially 

integrated, and to have, with their dependents, equal treatment and opportunity not only on the military reservation but also in nearby communities. The 

gradual compliance with Secretary McNamara's directives in the mid-1960's 

marked the crumbling of rhe last legal and administrative barriers to these goals. 

Why the Services Integrated 

In retrospect, several causes for the elimination of these barriers can be identified. First, if only for the constancy and fervor of its demands, was the civil 

rights movement. An obvious correlation exists between the development of 

this movement and the shift in the services' racial attitudes. The civil rights advocates-that is, · those spokesmen of the rapidly proliferating civil rights 

organizations and their allies in Congress, the White House, and the mediaformed a pressure group that zealously enlisted political support for equal opportunity measures. Their metier was presidential politics. In several elections 

they successfully traded their political assistance, an unknown quantity, for 

specific reform. Their influence was crucial, for example, in Roosevelt's decision 

to enlist Negroes for general service in the World War II Navy and in all 

branches of the Army and in Truman's proclamation of equal treatment and opportunity; it was notable in the adjudication of countless discrimination cases 

involving individual black servicemen both on and off the military base. Running through all their demands and expressed more and more clearly during this 

period was the conviction that segregation itself was discrimination. The success 

of their campaign against segregation in the armed forces can be measured by 

the extent to which this proposition came to be accepted in the counsels of the 

White House and the Pentagon. 

Because the demands of the civil rights advocates were extremely persistent 

and widely heard, their direct influence on the integration of the services has 

sometimes been overstressed. In fact, for much of the period their most important demands were neutralized by the logical-sounding arguments of those 

defending the racial status quo. More to the point, the civil rights revolution 

itself swept along some important defense officials. Thus the reforms begun by 

James Forrestal and Robert McNamara testified to the indirect but important influence of the civil rights movement. 
610 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Resisting the pressure for change was a solid bloc of officials in the services 

which held out for the retention of traditional policies of racial exclusion or 

segregation. Professed loyalty to military tradition was all too often a cloak for 

prejudice, and prejudice, of course, was prevalent in all the services just as it was 

in American society. At the same time traditionalism simply reflected the 

natural inclination of any large, inbred bureaucracy to preserve the privileges 

and order of an earlier time. Basically, the military traditionalists- that is, most 

senior officials and commanders of the armed forces and their allies in Congress- took the position that black servicemen were difficult to train and 

undependable in battle. They cited the performance of large black combat units 

during the world wars as support for their argument. They also rationalized their 

opposition to integration by saying that the armed forces should not be' an instrument of social change and that the services could only reflect the social mores 

of the society from which they sprang. Thus, in their view, integration not only 

hindered the services' basic mission by burdening them with undependable 

units and marginally capable men, but also courted social upheaval in military 

units. 

Eventually reconciled to the integration of military units, many military officials continued to resist the idea that responsibility for equal treatment and opportunity of black servicemen extended beyond the gates of the military reservation. Deeply ingrained in the officer corps was the conviction that the role of the 

military was to serve, not to change, society. To effect social change, the traditionalist argued, would require an intrusion into politics that was by definition 

militarism. It was the duty of the Department of Justice and other civilian agencies, not the armed forces, to secure those social changes essential for the protection of the rights of servicemen in the civilian community. 

1 If these arguments 

appear to have overlooked tthe real causes of the services' wartime racial problems and ignored some of the logical implications of Truman's equal treatment 

and opportunity order, they were nevertheless in the mainstream of American 

military thought, ardently supported, and widely proclaimed. 

The story of integration in the armed forces has usually, and with some 

logic, been told in terms of the conflict between the ''good'' civil rights advocates and the "bad" traditionalists. In fact, the history of integration goes 

beyond the dimensions of a morality play and includes a number of other influences both institutional and individual. 

The most prominent of these institutional factors were federal legislation 

and executive orders. After World War II most Americans moved slowly toward 

acceptance of the proposition that equal treatment and opportunity for the nation's minorities was both just and prudent.

2 A drawn-out process, this acceptance was in reality a grudging concession to the promptings of the civil rights 

1

Speaking at a later date on this subject, former Army Chief of Staff J. Lawton Collins observed that 

"when we look about us and see the deleterious effects of military interference in civilian governments 

throughout . .. many other areas of the world, we can be grateful that American military leaders have 

generally sruck to their proper sphere." See Memo, Collins for OSD Historian, 21 Aug 76, copy in CMH. 2

For an extended discussion of rhe moral basis of racial reform, see O'Connor's interview with Hesburgh, 

27 Mar66. 
VIETNAM PATROL. Men of the 35th Infantry advance during "Operation Baker." 
612 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

movement; translated into federal legislation, it exerted constant pressure on 

the racial policy of the armed forces. The Selective Service Acts of 1940 and 

1948, for example, provided an important reason for integrating when, as interpreted by the executive branch, their racial provisions required each service to 

accept a quota of Negroes among its draftees. The services could evade the provisions of the acts for only so long before the influx of black draftees in conjunction with other pressures led to alterations in the old racial policies. Truman's 

order calling for equality of treatment and opportunity in the services was also a 

major factor in the racial changes that took place in the Army in the early 

1950's. To a great extent the dictates of the civil rights laws of 1964 and 1965 exerted similar pressure on the services and account for the success of the Defense 

Department's comprehensive response during the mid-1960's to the discrimination faced by servicemen in the local community. 

Questions concerning the effect of law on social custom, and particularly the 

issue of whether government should force social change or await the popular 

will, are of continuing interest to the sociologist and the political scientist. In 

the case of the armed forces, a sector of society that habitually recognizes the 

primacy of authority and law, the answer was clear. Ordered to integrate, the 

members of both races adjusted, though sometimes reluctantly, to a new social 

relationship. The traditionalists' genuine fear that racial unrest would follow 

racial mixing proved unfounded. The performance of individual Negroes in the 

integrated units demonstrated that changed social relationships could also produce rapid improvement in individual and group achievement and thus increase 

military efficiency. Furthermore, the successful integration of military units in 

the 1950's so raised expectations in the black community that the civil rights 

leaders would use that success to support their successful campaign in the 1960's 

to convince the government that it must impose social change on the community at large. 3 

Paralleling the influence of the law, the quest for military efficiency was 

another institutional factor that affected the services' racial policies. The need 

for military efficiency had always been used by the services to rationalize racial 

exclusion and segregation; later it became the primary consideration in the decision of each service to integrate its units. Reinforcing the efficiency argument 

was the realization by the military that manpower could no longer be considered 

an inexhaustible resource. World War II had demonstrated that the federal 

government dare not ignore the· military and industrial potential of any segment 

of its population. The reality of the limited national manpower pool explained 

the services' guarantee that Negroes would be included in the postwar period as 

cadres for the full wartime mobilization of black manpower. Timing was 

somewhat dependent on the size and mission of the individual service; integration came to each when it became obvious that black manpower could not be 

used efficiently in separate organizations. In the case of the largest service, the 

3For an extended discussion of the law and racial change, sec Greenberg. Race Relations tmd A11terican 

Law: Charles C. Moskos, Jr.. "Racial [meg ration in the Armed Forces," American joumal of Sociology 72 

(Scp.tcmbcr 1966): 132-48: Ginzbcrg. The Negro Potemial. pp. 127-31. 
CONCLUSION 613 

MARINE ENGINEERS IN VIETNAM. Men of the 11th Engineer Battalt'on move culverts 

into place in a mountain stream during ''Operation Pegasus. '' 

Army, the Fahy Committee used the failure to train and use eligible Negroes in 

unfilled jobs to convince senior officials that military efficiency demanded the 

progressive integration of its black soldiers, beginning with those men eligible 

for specialist duties. The final demonStration of the connection between efficiency and integration came from those harried commanders who, trying against 

overwhelming odds to fight a war in Korea with segregated units, finally began 

integrating their forces. They found that their black soldiers fought better in integrated units. 

Later, military efficiency would be the rationale for the Defense Department's fight against discrimination in the local community. The Gesell Committee was used by Adam Yarmolinsky and others to demonstrate to Secretary 

McNamara if not to the satisfaction of skeptical military traditionalists and congressional critics chat the need to solve a severe morale problem justified the 

department's intrusion. Appeals to military efficiency, therefore, became the 

ultimate justification for integrating the units of the armed forces and providing 

for equal treatment of its members in the community. 

Beyond the demands of the law and military efficiency, the integration of 

the armed forces was also influenced by certain individuals within the military 

establishment who personified America's awakening social conscience. They led 
614 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

the services along the road toward integration not because the law demanded it, 

nor because activists clamored for it, nor even because military efficiency required it, but because they believed it was right. Complementing the work of 

these men and women was the opinion of the American serviceman himself. 

Between 1940 and 1965 his attitude toward change was constantly discussed and 

predicted but only rarely solicited by senior officials. Actually his opinion at that 

time is still largely unknown; documentary evidence is scarce, and his recollections, influenced as they are by the intervening years of the civil rights movement, are unreliable. Yet it was clearly the serviceman's generally quiet acceptance of new social practices, particularly those of the early 1950's, that ratified 

the services' racial reforms. As a perceptive critic of the nation's racial history 

described conditions in the services in 1962: 

There was a rising tide of tolerance around the nation at that time. I was thrilled to see it 

working in the services. Whethe.r officers were working for it or not it existed. From time 

to time you would find an officer imbued with the desire tO improve race relations .... It was a marvel to me, in contrast to my recent investigations in the South, to 

see how well integration worked in the services. 4 

Indeed, it could be argued, American servicemen of the 1950's became a 

positive if indirect cause of racial change. By demonstrating that large numbers 

of blacks and whites could work and live together, they destroyed a fundamental 

argument of the opponents of integration and made further reforms possible if . . not 1mperauve. 

How the Services Integrated, 1946-1954 

The interaction of all these factors can be seen when equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces is considered in two distinct phases, the first 

culminating in the integration of all active military units in 1954, the second 

centering around the decision in 1963 to push for equal opportunity for black 

servicemen outside the gates of the military base. 5 

The Navy was the acknowledged pioneer in integration. Its decision during 

World War II to assign black and white sailors to certain ships was not entirely a 

response to pressures from civil rights advocates, although Secretary James Forrestal relied on his friends in the Urban League, particularly Lester Granger, to 

teach him the techniques of integrating a large organization. Nor was the de~ision solely the work of racial reformers in the Bureau of Naval Personnel, 

although this small group was undoubtedly responsible for drafting the regulations that governed the changes in the wartime Navy. Rather, the Navy began 

integrating its general service because segregation proved painfully inefficient. 

The decision was largely the result of the impersonal operation of the 1940 draft 

law. Although imperfectly applied during the war, the antidiscrimination provision of that law produced a massive infusion of black inductees. The Army, with 

~lnterv, authorwich Muse. 2 Mar 73 . 

5Porcions of the following djscussion have been published in somewhat different form under the title 

"Armed Forces Integration- Forced or Free?" in The Military atJd Society, Proceedings oj1he Fifth Military 

Sympo1ium (U.S. Air Force Academy. 1972). 
\ 

CONCLUSION 

its larger manpower base and expandable black units, could evade the implications of a nondiscrimination 

clause, but the sheer presence of large 

numbers of Negroes in the service, 

more than any other force, breached the 

walls of segregation in the Navy. 

The Navy experiment with an allblack crew had proved unsatisfactory, 

and only so many shore-based jobs were 

considered suitable for large segregated 

units. Bowing to the argument that two 

navies- one black, one white-were 

both inefficient and expensive, 

Secretary Forrestal began to experiment 

with integration during the l:ast months 

of the war and finally announced a 

policy of integration in February 1946. 

The full application of this new policy 

would wait for some years while the 

Navy's traditional racial attitudes warred with its practical desire for effictency. 

The Air Force was the next to end 

615 

LOADING A ROCKET LAUNCHER. 

Crewmen of the USS Crmonade participating in a coordinated gunfire 

support action near Chu Lai, 

Vietnam. 

segregation. Again, immediate outside influences appeared to be slight. 

Despite the timing of the Air Force integration directive in early 1949 and 

Secretary Stuart Symington's discussions of the subject with Truman and the 

Fahy Committee, plans to drop many racial barriers in the Air Force had already 

been formulated at the time of the President's equal opportunity order in 1948. 

Nor is there any evidence of special concern among Air Force officials about the 

growing criticism of their segregation policy. The record clearly reveals, 

however, that by late 1947 the Air staff had become anxious over the manpower 

requirements of the Gillem Board Report, which enunciated the postwar racial 

policy that the Air Force shared with the Army. 

The Gillem Board Report would hardly be classified as progressive by later 

standards; its provisions for reducing the size of black units and integrating a 

small number of black specialists were, in a way, an effort to make segregation 

less wasteful. Nevertheless, with all its shortcomings, this postwar policy contained the germ of integration. It committed the Army and Air Force to total integration as a long-range objective, and, more important, it made permanent 

the wartime policy of allotting 10 percent of the Army's strength to Negroes. 

Later branded by the civil rights spokesmen as an instrument for limiting black 

enlistment, the racial quota committed the Army and its offspring, the Air 

Force, not only to maintaining at least 10 percent black strength but also to 

assigning black servicemen to all branches and all job categories, thereby 
616 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-196 5 

significantly weakening the segregated system. Although never filled in either 

service, the quotas guaranteed that a large number of Negroes would remain in 

uniform after the war and thus gave both services an incentive to desegregate. 

Once again the Army could postpone the logical consequences of its racial 

policy by the continued proli£eration of its segregated combat and service units. 

But the new Air Force almost immediately felt the full force of the Gillem Board 

policy, quickly learning that it could not maintain 10 percent black strength 

separate but equal. It too might have continued indefinitely enlarging the 

number of service units in order to absorb black airmen. Like the Army, it might 

even have ignored the injunction to assign a quota of blacks to every military occupation and to every school. But it was politically impossible for the Air Force 

to do away with its black flying units, and it became economically impossible in 

a time of shrinking budgets and manpower cuts to operate separate flying units 

for the small group of Negr9es involved. It was also unfeasible, considering the 

small number of black rated officers and men, to fill all the positions in the 

black air units and provide at the same time for the normal rotation and advanced training schedules. Facing these difficulties and mindful of the Navy's 

experience with integration, the Air Force began serious discussion of the integration of its black pilots and crews in 1947, some months before Truman 

issued his order. 

Committed to integrating its air units and rated men in 1949, the Air staff 

quietly enlarged its objectives and broke up all its black units, thereby making 

the Air Force the first service to achieve total integration. There were several 

reasons for this rapid escalation in what was to have been a limited program. As 

devised by General Edwards and Colonel Matr of the Air staff the plan demanded that all black airmen in each command be conscientiously examined so 

that all might be properly reassigned, further trained, retained in segregated 

units, or dismissed. The removal of increasing numbers of eligible men from 

black units only hastened the end of those organizations, a tendency ratified by 

the trouble-free acceptance of the program by all involved. 

The integration of the Army was more protracted. The Truman order in 

1948 and the Fahy Committee, the White House group appointed to oversee 

the execution of that order, focused primarily on the segregated Army. There is 

little doubt that the President's action had a political dimension. Given the fact 

that the Army had become a major target of the President's own Civil Rights 

Commission and that it was a highly visible practitioner of segregation, the 

equal opportunity order would almost have had to be part of the President's 

plan to unite the nation's minorities behind his 1948 candidacy. The order was 

also a logical response to the threat of civil disobedience issued by A. Philip Randolph and endorsed by other civil rights advocates. In a matter of weeks after 

Truman issued his integration order, Randolph dropped his opposition to the 

1948 draft law and his call for a boycott of the draft by Negroes. 

It remained for the Fahy Committee to translate the President's order into a 

working program leading toward integration of the Army. Like Randolph and 

other activists, the committee quickly concluded that segregation was a denial of 

equal treatment and opportunity and that the executive order, therefore, was 
CONCLUSION 617 

essentially a call for the services to integrate. After lengthy negotiations, the 

committee won from the Army an agreement to move progressively toward full 

integration. Gradual integration was disregarded, however, when the Army, 

fighting in Korea, was forced by a direct threat to the efficiency of its operations 

to begin wide-scale mixing of the races. Specifically, the proximate reason for 

the Army's integration in the Far East was the fact that General Ridgway faced a 

severe shortage of replacements for his depleted white units while accumulating 

a surplus of black replacements. So pressing was his need that even before permission was received from Washington integration had already begun on the 

battlefield. The reason for the rapid integration of the rest of the Army was 

more complicated. The example of Korea was persuasive, as was the need for a 

uniform policy, but beyond that the rapid modernization of the Army was making obsolete the large-scale labor units traditionally used by the Army to absorb 

much of its black quota. With these units disappearing, the Army had to find 

new jobs for the men, a task hopelessly complicated by segregation. 

The postwar racial policy of the Marine Corps struck a curious compromise 

between that of the Army and of the Navy. Adopting the former's system of 

segregated units and the latter's rejection of the 10 percent racial quota, the 

corps was able to assign its small contingent of black marines to a few segregated 

noncombatant duties. But the policy of the corps was only practicable for its 

peacetime size, as its mobilization for Korea demonstrated. Even before the 

Army was forced to change, the Marine Corps, its manpower planners pressed to 

find trained men and units to fill its divisional commitment to Korea, quietly 

abandoned the rules on segregated service. 

While progressives cited the military efficiency of integration, traditionalists 

used the efficiency argument to defend the racial status quo. In general, senior 

military officials had concluded on the basis of their World War II experience 

that large black units were ineffective, undependable in close combat, and best 

suited for supply assignments. Whatever their motives, the traditionalists had 

reached the wrong conclusion from their data. They were correct when they 

charged that, despite competent and even heroic performance on the part of 

some individuals and units, the large black combat units had, on average, performed poorly during the war. But the traditionalists failed, as they had failed 

after World War I, to see the reasons for this poor performance. Not the least of 

these were the benumbing discrimination suffered by black servicemen during 

training, the humiliations involved in their assignments, and the ineptitude of 

many of their leaders, who were most often white. 

Above all, the postwar manpower planners drew the wrong conclusion from 

the fact that the average General Classification Test scores of men in World War 

II black units fell significantly below that of their white counterparts. The scores 

were directly related to the two groups' relative educational advantages which 

depended to a large extent on their economic status and the geographic region 

from which they came. This mental average of servicemen was a unit problem, 

for at all times the total number of white individuals who scored in low:aptitude 

categories IV and V greatly outnumbered black individuals in those categories. 
618 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

This greater number of less gifted white 

servicemen had been spread thinly 

throughout the services' thousands of 

white units where they caused no particular problem. The lesser number of 

Negroes with low aptitude, however, 

were concentrated in the relatively few 

black units, creating a serious handicap 

to efficient performance. Conversely, 

the contribution of talented black servicemen was largely negated by their frequent assignment to units with too 

many low-scoring men. Small units 

composed in the main of black specialists, such as the black artillery and armor units that served in the European 

theater during World War II, served 

with distinction, but these units were 

special cases where the effect of segregation was tempered by the special qualifications of the carefully chosen men. 

Segregation and not mental aptitude 

~ERICAN SA~LORS help evacuate was the key to the poor performance of 

Vtetnamese chzld. the large black units in World War II. 

Postwar service policies ignored these facts and defended segregation in the 

name of military efficiency. In short, the armed forces had to make inefficiency 

seem efficient as they explained in paternalistic fashion that segregation was best 

for all concerned. "In general, the Negro is less well educated than his brother 

citizen that is white,'' General Eisenhower told the Senate Armed Forces Committee in 1948, "and if you make a complete amalgamation, what you are going to have is in every company the Negro is going to be relegated to the minor 

jobs ... because the competition is too rough.' '

6 

Competence in a great many skills became increasingly important for servicemen in the postwar period as the trend toward technical complexity and 

specialization continued in all the services. Differences in recruiting gave some 

services an advantage. The Navy and Air Force, setting stricter standards of 

enlistment, could fill their ranks with high-scoring volunteers and avoid 

enlisting large groups of low-scoring men, often black, who were eventually 

drafted for the Army. While this situation helped reduce the traditional opposition to integration in the Navy and Air Force, it made the Army more determined to retain separate black units to absorb the large number of low-scoring 

draftees it was obligated to take . A major factor in the eventual integration of 

the Army- and the single most significant contribution of the Secretary of 

6Quoted in Senate, Hearings Befosc the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, Universal Military 

TraitJing, 80rh Cong., 2d scss., 1948, pp. 99:>-96. 
CONCLUSION 

Defense to that end- was George Marshall's decision to establish a parity of 

enlistment standards for the services. 

On the advice of his manpower assistant, Anna Rosenberg, Marshall 

abolished the special advantage enjoyed 

by the Navy and Air Force, making all 

the services share in the recruitment of 

low-scoring men. The common standard undercut the Army's most persuasive argument for restoring a racial 

quota and maintaining segregated 

units. 

In the years from 1946 to 1954, 

then, several forces converged to bring 

about integration of the regular armed 

forces. Pressure from the civil rights advocates was one, idealistic leadership 

another. Most important, however, was 

the services' realization that segregation 

was an inefficient way to use the manpower provided by a democratic draft 

law or a volunteer system made 

democratic by the Secretary of Defense. 

619 

BOOBY TRAP VICTIM from Company 

B, 47th Infantry, resting on buddy's 

back, awaits evacuation. 

Each service reached its conclusion separately, since each had a different problem in the efficient use of manpower and each had its own racial traditions. 

Accordingly, the services saw little need to exchange views, develop rivalries, or 

imitate one another's racial policies. There were two exceptions to this situation: 

both the Army and Air Force naturally considered the Navy's integration experience when they were formulating postwar policies, and the Navy and Air 

Force fought the Army's proposals to experiment with integrated units and institute a parity of enlistment standards. 

Equal Treatment and 0 p portunity 

Segregation officially ended in the active armed forces with the announcement of the Secretary of Defense in 1954 that the last all-black unit had been 

disbanded. In the little more than six years after President Truman's order, 

some quarter of a million blacks had been intermingled with whites in the nation's military units worldwide. These changes ushered in a brief era of good 

feeling during which the services and the civil rights advocates tended to 

overlook some forms of discrimination that persisted within the services. This 

tendency became even stronger in the early 1960's when the discrimination suffered by black servicemen in local communities dramatized the relative effectiveness of the equal treatment and opportunity policies on military installations. In July 1963, in the wake of another presidential investigation of racial 
620 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

equality in the armed forces, Secretary of Defense McNamara outlined a new 

racial policy. An extension of the forces that had produced the abolition of 

segregated military units, the new policy also vowed to carry the crusade for 

equal treatment and opportunity for black servicemen outside the military compound into the civilian community beyond. McNamara's 1963 directive became 

the model for subsequent racial orders in the Defense Department. 

This enlargement of the department's concept of equal treatment and opportunity paralleled the rise of the modern civil rights movement, which was 

reaching its apogee in the mid-1960's. McNamara later acknowledged the in~ 

fluence of the civil rights activists on his department during this period. But the 

department's racial progress cannot be explained solely as a reaction to the 

pressures exerted by the civil rights movement. Several other factors lay behind 

the new and broader policy. The Defense Department was, for instance, under 

constant pressure from black officers and men who were not only reporting inequities in the newly integrated services and complaining of the remaining racial 

discrimination within the military community but were also demanding the 

department's assistance in securing their constitutional rights from the communities outside the military bases. This was particularly true in the fields of 

public education, housing, and places of entertainment. 

The services as well as the Defense Department's manpower officials resisted 

these demands and continued in the early 1960's to limit their racial reforms to 

those necessary but exclusively internal matters most obviously connected with 

the efficient operation of their units. Reinforcing this resistance was the reluctance on the part of most commanders to break with tradition and interfere in 

what they considered community affairs. Nor had McNamara's early policy 

statements in response to servicemen's demands come to grips with the issue of 

discrimination in the civilian community. At the same time, some reformers in 

the Defense Department had allied themselves with like-minded progressives 

throughout the administration and were searching for a way to carry out President Kennedy's commitment to civil rights. These individuals were determined 

to use the services' early integration successes as a stepping-stone to further civil 

rights reforms while the administration's civil rights program remained bogged 

down in Congress. 

Although these reformers believed that the armed forces could be an effective instrument of social change for society at large, they clothed their aims in 

the garb of military efficiency. In fact , military efficiency was certainly 

McNamara's paramount concern when he supported the idea of enlarging the 

scope of his department's racial programs and when in 1962 he readily accepted 

the proposal to appoint the Gesell Committee to study the services' racial program. 

The Gesell Committee easily documented the connection, long suspected by 

the reformers, between discrimination in the community and poor morale 

among black servicemen and the link between morale and combat efficiency. 

More important, with its ability to publicize the extent of discrimination against 

black servicemen in local communities and to offer practical recommendations 
CONCLUSION 621 

for reform, the committee was able to stimulate the secretary into action. Yet 

not until his last years in office, beginning with his open housing campaign in 

1967, did McNamara, who had always championed the stand of Adam Yarmolinsky and the rest, become a strong participant. 

McNamara promptly endorsed the Gesell Committee's report, which called 

for a vigorous program to provide equal opportunity for black servicemen, 

ordering the services to launch such a program in communities near military 

bases and making the local commander primarily responsible for its success. He 

soft-pedaled the committee's controversial provision for the use of economic 

sanctions against recalcitrant businessmen, stressing instead the duty of commanders to press for changes through voluntary compliance. These effons, according to Defense Department reportS, achieved gratifying results in the next 

few years. In conjunction with other federal officials operating under provisions 

of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, local commanders helped open thousands of 

theaters, bowling alleys, restaurants, and bathing beaches to black servicemen. 

Only in the face of continued opposition to open housing by landlords who 

dealt with servicemen, and then not until 1967, did McNamara decide to use 

the powerful and controversia.l weapon of off-limits sanctions. In short order his 

programs helped destroy the patterns of segregation in multiple housing in areas 

surrounding most military bases. 

The federal government's commitment to civil rights, manifest in Supreme 

Court decisions, executive orders, and congressional actions, was an important 

support for the Defense Department's racial program during this second part of 

the integration era. It is doubtful whether many of the command initiatives 

recommended by the Gesell Committee would have succeeded or even been 

tried without the court's 1954 school ruling and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

Yet in several important instances, such as the McNamara 1963 equal opportunity directive and the open housing campaign in 1967, the department's actions antedated federal action. Originally a follower of civilian society in racial 

matters, the armed forces moved ahead in the 1950's and by the mid-1960's had 

become a powerful stimulus for change in civilian practices in some areas of the 

country.7 

Achievements of the services should not detract from the primacy of civil 

rights legislation in the reforms of the 1960's. The sudden fall of barriers to 

black Americans was primarily the result of the Civil Rights Acts. But the fact 

and example of integration in the armed forces was an important cause of 

change in the communities near military bases. Defense officials, prodding in 

the matter of integrated schooling for dependent children, found the mere existence of successfully integrated on-base schooling a useful tool in achieving 

similar schooling off-base. The experience of having serv~d in the integrated 

armed forces, shared by so many young Americans, also exercised an immeasurable influence on the changes of the 1960's. Gesell Committee member 

Benjamin Muse recalled hearing a Mississippi hitchhiker· say in 1961 at the 

height of the anti-integration, anti-Negro fever in that area: "I don't hold with 

7For a discussion of this point, see Yarmolinsky' s The Military Establishment, pp. 346-) l . 
622 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

CAMARADERIE. A soldt'er of Company C, 7th Infantry, lights a cigarette for a 

marine from D Company, 26th Marines, during "Operatiot~ Pegams" near Khe 

Sanh. 

this stuff about 'niggers'. I had a colored buddy in Korea, and I want to tell you 

he was all right.' '

8 

In retrospect, the attention paid by defense officials and the services to offbase discrimination in the 1960's may have been misdirected; many of these injustices would eventually have succumbed to civil rights legislation. Certainly 

more attention could have been paid to the unfinished business of providing 

equal treatment and opportunity for black servicemen within the military community. Discrimination in matters of promotion, assignment, and military 

justice, overlooked by almost everyone in the early 1960's, was never treated 

with the urgency it deserved. To have done so might have averted at least some 

of the racial turmoil visited on the services in the Vietnam era. 

But these shortcomings merely point to the fact that the services were the 

only segment of American society to have integrated, however impedectly, the 

races on so large a scale. In doing so they demonstrated that a policy of equal 

treatment and opportunity is more than a legal concept; it also ordains a social 

8Quotcd in Ltr. Muse to Chief of Military History, 2 Aug 76, in CMH. 
I 

CONCLUSION 623 

condition. Between the enunciation of such a policy and the achievement of its 

goals can fall the shadow of bigotry and the traditional way of doing things. The 

record indicates that the services surmounted bigotry and rejected the old ways 

to a gratifying degree . To the extent that they were successful in bringing the 

races together, their efficiency prospered and the nation's ideal of equal opportunity for all citizens was fortified. 

Unfortunately, the collapse of the legal and administrative barriers to equal 

treatment and opportunity in the armed forces did not lead immediately to the 

full realization of this ideal. Equal treatment and opportunity would remain an 

elusive goal for the Department of Defense for years to come. The post-1965 

period comprises a new chapter in the racial history of the services. The agitation 

that followed the McNamara era had different roots from the events of the 

previous decades. The key to this difference was suggested during the Vietnam 

War by the Kerner Commission in its stark conclusion that "our nation is moving coward two societies, one black, one white-separate but unequal. " 9 In contrast co the McNamara period of integration, when civil rights advocates and 

Defense Department officials worked toward a common goal, subsequent years 

would be marked by an often greater militancy on the part of black servicemen 

and a new kind of friction between a fragmented civil rights movement and the 

Department of Defense. Clearly, in coping with these problems the services will 

have to move beyond the elimination of legal and administrative barriers that 

had ordered their racial concerns between 1940 and 196 5. 

9Report of the National Advisory Co,mnission on Civil Disorders, p. 't. 

Note on Sources 

The search for source materials used in this volume provided the writer with 

a special glimpse into the ways in which various government agencies have 

treated what was until recently considered a sensitive subject. Most important 

documents and working papers concerning the employment of black servicemen 

were, well into the 1950's and in contrast to the great bulk of personnel policy 

papers, routinely given a security classification. In some agencies the ''secret'' or 

"confidential" stamp was considered sufficient to protect the materials, which 

were filed and retired in a routine manner and, therefore, have always been 

readily available to the persistent and qualified researcher. But, as any experienced staff officer could demonstrate, other methods beyond mere 

classification can be devised to prevent easy access to sensitive material. 

Thus, subterfuges were employed from time to time by officials dealing with 

racial subjects. In some staff agencies, for example, ·documents were collected in 

special files, separated from the normal personnel or policy files. In other instances the materials were never retired in a routine matter, but instead remained for many years scattered in offices of origin or, less often, in some central file system. If some officials appear to have been overly anxious to shield 

their agency's record, they also, it should be added, possessed a sense of history 

and the historical import of their work. Though the temptation may have been 

strong within some agencies to destroy papers connected with past controversies, 

most officials scrupulously preserved not only the basic policy documents concerning this specialized subject, but also much of the back-up material that the 

historian treasures. 

The problem for the modern researcher is that these special collections and 

reserved materials, no longer classified and no longer sensitive, have fallen, 

largely unnoted, into a sea of governmental paper beyond the reach of the archivist's finding aids. The frequently expressed comment of the researcher, 

"somebody is withholding something," should, for the sake of accuracy, be 

changed to ''somebody has lost track of something.'' 

This material might never have been recovered without the skilled assistance 

of the historical offices of the various services and Office of the Secretary of 

Defense. At times their search for lost documents assumed the dimensions of a 

detective story. In partnership with Marine Corps historian Ralph Donnelly, for 

example, the author finally traced the bulk of the World War II racial records of 

the Marine Corps to an obscure and unmarked file in the classified records section of Marine Corps headquarters. A comprehensive collection of official 

documents on the employment of black personnel in the Navy between 1920 

and 1946 was unearthed, not in the official archives, but in a dusty file cabinet 

in the Bureau of Naval Personnel's Management Information Division. 
626 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

The search also had. its frustrations, for some materials seem permanently 

lost. Despite persistent and imaginative work by tpe Coast Guard's historian, 

Truman Strobridge, much of the documentary record of that service's World 

War II racial history could not be located. The development of the Coast 

Guard's policy has had to be reconstructed, painstakingly and laboriously, from 

other sources. The records of many Army staff agencies for the period 1940-43 

were destroyed on the assumption that their materials·were duplicated in The 

Adjutant General's files, an assumption that frequently proved to be incorrect. 

Although general.ly intact, the Navy's records of the immediate post-World War 

II period also lack some of the background staff work on the employment of 

black manpower. Fortunately for this writer, the recent, inadvertent destruction 

of the bulk of the Bureau of Naval Personnel's classified wartime records occurred after the basic research for this volume had been completed, but this 

lamentable accident will no doubt cause problems for future researchers. 

Thanks to the efforts of the services' historical offices and the wonder of 

photocopying, future historians may be spared some of the labor connected with 

the preparation of this volume. Most of the records surviving outside regular archives have been identified and relocated for easy access. Copies of approximately 65 percent of all documents cited in this volume have been collected and 

are presently on file in the Center of Military History, from which they will be 

retired for permanent preservation. 

Official Archival Material 

The bulk of the official records used in the preparation of this volume is in 

the permanent custody of the National Archives and Records Service, 

Washington, D.C. The records of most military agencies for the period 1940-54 

are located in the Modern Military Records Branch or in the Navy and Old Army 

Branch of the National Archives proper. Most documents dated after 1954, 

along with military unit records (including ships' logs), are located in the 

General Archives Division in the Washington National Records Center, 

Suitland, Maryland. The Suitland center also holds the other major group of official materials, that is, all those documents still administered by the individual 

agencies but stored in the center prior to their screening and acquisition by the 

National Archives. These records are open to qualified researchers, but access to 

them is controlled by the records managers of the individual agencies, a not 

altogether felicitious arrangement for the researcher, considering the bulk of the 

material and its lack of organization. 

The largest single group of materials consulted were those of the various offices of the Army staff. Although these agencies have abandoned the system of 

classifying all documents by a decimal-subject system, the system persisted in 

many offices well into the 1960's, thereby enabling the researcher to accomplish 

a speedy, if unrefined, screening of pertinent materials. Even with this crutch, 

the researcher must still comb through thousands of documents created by the 

Secretary of War (later Secretary of the Army), his assistant secretary, the Chief 
I 

NOTES ON SOURCES 627 

of Staff, and the various staff divisions, especially the Personnel (G-1), 

Organization and Training (G-3), and Operations Divisions, together with the 

offices of The Adjutant General, the Judge Advocate General, and the Inspector 

General. The War Department Special Planning Division's files are an extremely important source, especially for postwar racial planning, as are the 

records of the three World War II major commands, the Army Ground, Service, 

and Air Forces. Although illuminating in regard to the problem of racial 

discrimination, the records of the office of the secretary's civilian aide are less 

important in terms of policy development. Finally, the records of the black 

units, especially the important body of documents related to the tribulations of 

the 92d Infantry Division in World War II and the 24th Infantry Regiment in 

Korea, are also vital sources for this subject. 

The records managers in the Office of the Secretary of Defense also used the 

familiar 291.2 classification to designate materials related to the subject of 

Negroes. (An exception to this generalization were the official papers of the 

secretary's office during the Forrestal period when a Navy file system was 

generally employed.) The most important materials on the subject of the 

Defense Department's racial interests are found in the records of the Office of 

the Secretary of Defense. The majority of these records, including the 

voluminous files of the Assistant Secretary (Manpower) so helpful for the later 

sections of the study, have remained in the custody of the department and are 

administered by the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Administration). After 1963 the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary (Civil 

Rights) and its successor organizations loom as a major source. Many of the official papers were eventually filed with those of the Assistant Secretary (Manpower) or have been retained in the historical files of the Equal Opportunity Office of the Secretary of Defense. The records of the Personnel Policy Board and 

the Office of the General Counsel, both part of the files of the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, are two more important sources of materials on black manpower. 

A subject classification system was not universally applied in the Navy 

Department during the 1940's and even where used proved exceedingly complicated. The records of the Office of the Secretary of the Navy arc especially 

strong in the World War II period, bur they must be supplemented with the 

National Archives' separate Forrescal papers file. Despite the recent loss of 

records, the files of the Bureau of Naval Personnel remain the primary source for 

documents on the employment of black personnel in the Navy. Research in all 

these files, even for the World War II period, is best begun in the Records 

Management offices of those two agencies. More readily accessible, the records 

of the Chief of Naval Operations and the General Board, both of considerable 

importance in understanding the Navy's World War II racial history, are located 

in the Operational Archives Branch, Naval Historical Division, Washington 

Navy Yard. This office has rec·ently created a special miscellaneous file containing important documents of interest to the researcher on racial matters that have 

been gleaned from various sources not easily available to the researcher. 
628 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940- 1965 

Copies of all known staff papers concerning black marines and the development of the Marine Corps' equal opportunity program during the integration 

period have been collected and filed in the reference section of the Director of 

Marine Corps History and Museums, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps. 

Likewise, most of the very small selection of extant official Coast Guard records 

on the employment of Negroes have been identified and collected by the Coast 

Guard historian. The log of the Sea Cloud, the first Coast Guard vessel in 

modern times to boast a raci.all y mixed crew, is located in the Archives Branch at 

Suitland. 

The Air Force has retained control of a significant portion of its postwar personnel records, and the researcher would best begin work in the Office of the 

Administrative Assistant, Secretary of the Air Force. This office has custody of 

the files of the Secretary of the Air Force, his assistant secretaries, the Office of 

the Chief of Staff, and the staff agencies pertinent to this story, especially the 

Deputy Chief of Staff, Personnel, and the Director of Military Personnel. The 

records of black air units, as well as the extensive and well-indexed collection of 

official unit and base histories and studies and reports of the Air staff that touch 

on the service's racial policies, are located in the Albert F. Simpson Historical 

Research Center, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. These records are supplemented, and 

sometimes duplicated, by the holdings of the Suitland Records Center and the 

Office of Air Force History, Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C. Other 

Air Force files of interest, particularly in the area of policy planning, can be 

found in the holdings of the National Archives' Modern Military Branch. 

The records of the Selective Service System also provide some interesting 

material, but most of this has been published by the Selective Service in its 

Special Groups (Special Monograph Number 10, 2 vols. [Washington: Government Printing Office, 1953]). Far more important are the records of the War 

Manpower Commission, located in the National Archives, which, when studied 

in conjunction with the papers of the Secretaries of War and Navy, reveal the influence of the 1940 draft law on the services' racial policies. 

Personal Collections 

The official records of the integration of the armed forces are not limited to 

those documents retired by the governmental agencies. Parts of the story must 

also be gleaned from documents that for various reasons have been included in 

the personal papers of individuals. Documents created by government officials, 

as well as much unofficial material of special interest, are scattered in a number 

of institutional or private repositories. Probably the most noteworthy of these 

collections is the papers of the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment 

and Opportunity in the Armed Forces (the Fahy Committee) in the Harry S. 

Truman Library. In additiop to this central source, the Truman Library also contains materials contributed by Philleo Nash, Oscar Chapm·an, and Clark Clifford, whose work in the White House was intimately, if briefly, concerned with 

armed forces integration. The President's own papers, especially the recently 
NOTES ON SOURCES 629 

opened White House Secretary's File, contain a number of imponant 

documents. 

Documents of special interest can also be found in the Roosevelt Papers at 

the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and among the various White House files 

preserved in the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library. The Central White House file 

in the John F. Kennedy Library, along with the papers of Harris Wofford and 

Gerhard Gesell, are essential to the history of equal opportunity in the early 

1960's. Most of these collections are well indexed. 

The James V. Forrestal Papers, Princeton University Library, while helpful in 

tracing the Urban League's contribution to the Navy's integration policy, lack 

the focus and comprehensiveness of the Forrestal Papers in the National Archives' Office of the Secretary of the Navy file. Another collection of particular 

interest for the naval aspects of the story is the Dennis D . Nelson Papers, in the 

custody of the Nelson family in San Diego, California, with a microfilm copy on 

file in the Navy's Operational Archives Branch in Washington. The heart of this 

collection is the materials Nelson gathered while writing ''The Integration of 

the Negro in the United States Navy, 1776-1947," a U.S. Navy monograph 

prepared in 1948. The Nelson collection also contains a large group of 

newspaper clippings and other rare secondary materials of special interest. The 

Maxie M. Berry Papers, in the custody of the equal opportunity officer of the 

U.S. Coast Guard headquarters, offer a rare glimpse into the life of black Coast 

Guardsmen during World War II, especially those assigned to the all-black Pea 

Island Station, North Carolina. 

The U.S. Army Military History Research Collection at Carlisle Barracks, 

Pennsylvania, has acquired the papers of James C. Evans, the long-time Civilian 

Aide to the Secretaries of War and Defense, and chose of Lt. Gen. Alvan C. 

Gillem, Jr., the chairman of the Army's special personnel board that bears his 

name. The Evans materials contain a rare collection of clippings and memorandums on integration in the armed forces; the Gillem Papers are particularly interesting for the summaries of testimony before the Gillem Board. 

The papers of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, are useful, especially if used 

in conjunction with that library's Arthur B. Spingarn Papers, in assessing the 

role of the civil rights leaders in bringing about black participation in World 

War II. The collection of secondary materials on Negroes in the armed forces in 

the Schomburg Collection, New York Public Library, however, is disappointing, considering the prominence of chat institution. 

Finally, the U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, D.C. , has 

on file those materials collected by the author in the preparation of this volume, 

including not only those items cited in the footnotes, but also copies of hundreds of official documents and correspondence with various participants, 

together with the unique body of documents and notes collected by Lee Nichols 

in his groundbreaking research on integration. Of particular importance among 

the documents in the Center of Military History are copies of many Bureau of 

Naval Personnel documents, the originals of which have since been destroyed, as 

well as copies of the bulk of the papers produced by the Fahy Committee. 
630 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Interviews 

The status of black servicemen in the integration era has attracted considerable attention among oral history enthusiasts. The author has taken advantage of this special source, but oral testimony concerning integra'tion must be 

treated cautiously. In addition to the usual dangers of fallible memory that 

haunt all oral history interviews, the subjects of some of these interviews, it 

should be emphasized, were separated from the events they were recalling by a 

civil rights revolution that has changed fundamentally the attitudes of many 

people, both black and white. In some instances it is readily apparent that the 

recollections of persons being interviewed have been colored by the changes of 

the 1950's and 1960's, and while their recitation of specific events can be 

checked against the records. their estimates of attitudes and influences, not so 

easily verified, should be used cautiously. Much of this danger can be avoided 

by a skillful interviewer with special knowledge of integration. Because of the 

care that went into the interviews conducted in the U.S. Air Force Oral History 

Program, which are on file at the Albert F. Simpson Historical Research Center, 

they are particularly dependable. This is especially true of those used in this 

study, for they were conducted by Lt. Col. Alan Gropman and Maj. Alan Osur, 

both serious students of the subject. Particular note should be made of the 

especially valuable interviews with former Secretary of the Air Force Eugene M. 

Zuckert and several of the more prominent black generals. 

The extensive Columbia University Oral History Collection has several interviews of special interest, in particular the very revealing interview with the National Urban League's Lester Granger. Read in conjunction with the National 

Archives' Forrestal Papers, this interview is a major source for the Navy's immediate postwar policy changes. Similarly, the Kennedy Library's oral history 

program contains several interviews that are helpful in assessing the role of the 

services in the Kennedy administration's civil rights program. Of particular interest are the interviews with Harris Wofford, Roy Wilkins, and Theodore 

Hesburgh. 

The U.S. Marine Corps Oral History Program, whose interviews are on file in 

Marine Corps headquarters, and the U.S. Navy Oral History Collection, copies 

of which can be found in the Navy's Operational Archives Branch, contain 

several interviews of special interest to researchers in racial history. Mention 

should be made of the Marine Corps interviews with Generals Ray A. Robinson 

and Alfred G. Noble and the Navy's interviews with Captains Mildred McAfee 

Horton and Dorothy Stratton, leaders of the World War II WAVES and SPARS. 

Finally, included in the files of the Center of Military History is a collection 

of notes taken by Lee Nichols, Martin Blumenson, and the author during their 

interviews with leading figures in the integration story. The Nichols notes, 

covering the series of interviews conducted by that veteran reporter in 1953-54, 

include such items as summaries of conversations with Harry S. Truman, 

Truman K. Gibson, Jr., and Emmett]. Scott. 
I 

NOTES ON SOURCES 631 

Printed Materials 

Many of the secondary materials found particularly helpful by the author 

have been cited throughout the volume, but special attention should be drawn 

to certain key works in several categories. In the area of official works, Ulysses 

Lee's The Employment of Negro Troops in the United States Army in World 

War II series (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1966) remains the 

definitive account of the Negro in the World War II Army. The Bureau of Naval 

Personnel's "The Negro in the Navy," Bureau of Naval Personnel History of 

World War II (mimeographed, 1946, of which there is a copy in the bureau's 

Technical Library in Washington), is a rare item that has assumed even greater 

significance with the loss of so much of the bureau's records. Presented without 

attribution, the text paraphrases many important documents accurately. 

Margaret L. Geis's "Negro Personnel in the European Command, 1 January 

1946-30 June 1950," part of the Occupation Forces in Europe series (Historical 

Division, European Command, 1952), Ronald Sher's "Integration of Negro 

and White Troops in the U.S. Army, Europe, 1952-1954" (Historical Division, 

Headquarters, U.S. Army, Europe, 1956), and Charles G. Cleaver, "Personnel 

Problems," vol. III, pt. 2, of the "History of the Korean War" (Military History 

Section, Headquarters, Far East Command, 1952), are important secondary 

sources for guiding the student through a bewildering mass of materials. Alan 

M. Osur's Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War II: The Problem of 

Race Relations (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1977) and Alan 

Gropman's The Air Force Integrates, 1945- 1964 (Washington: Government 

Printing Office, 1978), both published by the Office of Air Force History, and 

Henry I. Shaw, Jr., and Ralph W. Donnelly's Blacks in the Marine Corps 

(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1975) provided official, comprehensive surveys of their subjects. Finally, there is in the files of the Center of 

Military History a copy of the transcripts of the National Defense Conference on 

Negro Affairs (26 April 1948). Second only to the transcripts of the Fahy Committee hearings in comprehensiveness on the subject of postwar racial policies, 

this document also provides a rare look at the attitudes of the traditional black 

leadership at a crucial period. 

As the footnotes indicate, congressional documents and newspapers were 

also important resources mined in the preparation of this volume. Of particular 

interest, the Center of Military History has on file a special guide to some of 

these sources prepared by Lt. Col. Reinhold S. Schumann (USAR). This guide 

analyzes the congressional and press reaction to the 1940 and 1948 draft laws 

and to the Fahy and Gesell Committee reports. 

In his Blacks and the Military in American History: A New Perspective (New 

York: Praeger, 19 7 4), Jack D. Foner provides a fine general survey of the Negro 

in the armed forces, including an accurate summary of the integration period. 

Among the many specialized studies on the integration period itself, cited 

throughout the text, several might provide a helpful entree to a complicated 

subject. The standard account is Richard M. Dalfiume's Desegregation of the 
632 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

United States Armed Forces: Fighting on Two Fronts, 1939-1953 (Columbia, 

Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1969). Carefully documented and containing a very helpful bibliography, this work tends to emphasize the influence 

of the civil rights advocates and Harry Truman on the integration process. The 

reader will also benefit from consulting Lee Nichols's pioneer work, 

Breakthrough on the Color Front (New York: Random House, 1954). Although 

lacking documentation, Nichols's journalistic account was devised with the help 

of many of the participants and is still of considerable value to the student. The 

reader may also want to consult Richard J. Stillman II's short survey, Integration 

of the Negro in the U.S. Armed Forces (New York: Praeger, 1968), principally 

for its statistical information on the post-Korean period. 

The role of President Truman and the Fahy Committee in the integration of 

·the armed forces has been treated in detail by Dalfiume and by Donald R. McCoy and RichardT. Ruetten in Quest and Response: Minority Rights and the 

Truman Administration (Lawrence, Kansas: The University of Kansas Press, 

1973). A valuable critical appraisal of the short-range response of the Army to 

the Fahy Committee's work appeared in Edwin W. Kenworthy's "The Case 

Against Army Segregation,'' Annals of the American Academy of Political and 

Social Science 275 (May 1951):27-33. In addition, the reader may want to consult William C. Berman's The Politics of Civil Rights in the Truman Administration (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1970) for a general survey 

of civil rights in the Truman years. 

The expansion of the Defense Department's equal treatment and opportunity policy in the 1960's is explained by Adam Yarmolinsky in The Military 

Establishment: Its Impacts on American Society (New York: Harper & Row, 

1971). This book is the work of a number of informed specialists sponsored by 

the 20th Century Fund. A general survey of President Kennedy's civil rights 

program is presented by Carl M. Brauer in his john F. Kennedy and the Second 

Reconstruction (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977). The McNamara 

era is treated in Fred Richard Bahr' s ''The Expanding Role of the Department of 

Defense as an Instrument of Social Change" (Ph.D. dissertation, George 

Washington University, 1970). 

Concerning the rise of the civil rights movement itself, the reader would be 

advised to consult C. Vann Woodward's masterful The Strange Career of jim 

Crow, 3d ed. rev. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), and the two 

volumes composed by Gesell Committee member Benjamin Muse, Ten Years of 

Prelude: The Story of Integration Since the Supreme Court's 1954 Decision 

(New York: The Viking Press, 1964), and The American Negro. Revolution: 

From Nonviolence to Black Power, 1963-1967 (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1968). Important aspects of the civil rights movement and its influence on American servicemen are discussed by Jack Greenberg in Race Relations and American Law (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959) and Eli 

Ginzberg, The Negro Potential (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956). 

Finally, many of the documents supporting the history of the integration of 

the armed forces, including complete transcripts of the Fahy Committee hear-
NOTES ON SOURCES 633 

ings and the Conference on Negro Affairs, have been compiled by the author 

and Bernard C. Nalty in the multivolumed Blacks in the United States Armed 

Forces: Basic Documents (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1977). 

\ 

Index 

Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., 605 

Action Coordinating Committee-to End Segregation 

in the Suburbs (ACCESS), 601, 601n 

Adler, Julius Ochs, 314 

Advisory Committee oo Negro Troop Policies (McCloy Committee). 34-35, 39. 41-43, 45, 56, 

123 

Advisory Commission on Universal Training (Compton Commission), 303 

Ailes, Stephen, 5 74 

Air Force Times, 411 

Air forces 

Second, 273 

Third, 273 

Fourth, 273 

Ninth, 282 

Air Training Command, 402, 405 

AirTransportCommand, 273 

Air Transport Wing, 170 1st, 411 

Airborne Division, 82d, 190-92, 200 

Alaskan Command, integration of, 452 

Alaskan Department, 190, 197 

Alexander, SadieT. M., 294, 302n 

Almond, Lt. Gen. Edward M., 134, 135. 440-41 

American Civil liberties Union, 246, 418 

American legion, 225 

American Veterans Committee, 321, 503, 518, 521 

Anderson, Robert B., 421-23,484- 86 

Andrews Air Force Base, Md., 604-05 

Anti-Defamation League of B'oai B'rith, 492, 521 

Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion, 3d (USMC), 269 

Antilles Department, 190 

Arkansas A&M Normal College, 5 71 

Armed forces, Negroes in before 1940, 3-8 

Armed Forces Qualification Test, 394- 9:5. 523, 573. 

See also Intelligence levels and rest scores. 

Armies 

First, 53 

Sixth, 453 

Seventh, 53, 210-11, 390, 452 

Eighth, 208-10, 430, 433-34,436-39, 442-47 

Armored Division, 2d, 200 

Armored Field Artillery Battalion, 58th, 445 

Armstrong, lt. Comdr. Daniel, 67 

Army Air Forces 

efficiency, military, and segregation in, 26-30, 

271-79 

enlistment practices, 276 

manpower shortages, black, 271-72 

morale in, 273-74 

officer training schools, integration of, 275 

officers, black, 27-30, 272-73 

postwar assignments, 140-41, 159-60, 195, 197, 

272 

quotas, 180-81, 183 

racial policies, 1940- 1947, 27-30,271-79 

training in, 271, 274-76 

Army Forces, Pacific, 179 

Army General Classification Test (AGCT), 24-25, 

31, 55n, 137-38, 203-04, 215-16, 61-7-18. 

See also Intelligence levels and test scores. 

Army Ground Forces, 180, 189 

and assignmems, 194-95. 197 

and postwar location of training camps, 223-24 

and postwar usc of black troops, 139-40, 160 

Army Groups, 6th and 12th, 52-53 

Army Service Forces, 42 

and postwar quotas, 181, 190 

and postwar use of black troops, 138-39, 160- 61 

Army Talk 170, 226 

Arnold, Maj . Gen. Henry H. , 27.27 1,274 

Assignments, Air Force 

postwar, 277-79 

and reassignments during integration, 402-04, 

410 

Assignments, armed forces 

and civilian community attitudes, 37, 223-24, 

262-65, 467-68 

and embassy and special mission, 467. 577-78 

and occupational distribution, 523-26, 5 72-73 

and overseas resrrictions, 38, 179, 385-89 

Assignments, Army 

and Fahy Committee, 368-71 

and Korean Wac, 433-34 

postwar, 194-98 

in World War!!, 33-34,37-38,43-44, 51-54 

Assignments, Coast Guard, 114- 17 

Assignments, Marine Corps 

and 1951 integration order, 466-68 

postwar, 173,253-57,261-66,335-38 

in World War II, 104, 106-10 

Assignments, Navy 

postwar, 244- 45 

in World War II, 72-75, 77-78, 84-86,96 

Attitudes, change in toward Negroes, 229-30, 447, 

614 

Attorney General, 587, 589 

Availability of Facilities to Military Personnel, The, 

512- 15 

Bainbridge Naval Training Center, Md., 73. 77, 92. 

243 
636 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

Baker, Newton D., 46-47 

Baldwin, Hanson W ., 164, 317 

Bard , Ralph A., 59. 62-63, 144 

Bare, Maj. Gen. Robert 0., 467-68 

Barr, CQI. John E., 280-81 

Base Service Squadron, 3817th, 404 

Battle Mountain. Korea, 436 

Bayonne, N.J. (naval shipyard), 263-64 

Bennett, L. Howard, 559n, 603 

Benton, William, 392n 

Berthoud, 2d Lt. Kenneth H .. Jr., 472 

Bethune, Mary McLeod, 302n 

Biggs Air Force Base, Texas, 494 

Billikopf, Jacob, 314 · 

Blood banks, segregated, 36 

Blytheville, Ark., 498 

Bolte, Maj. Gen. Charles L., 194 

Bombardment Group, 477th, 29-30, 271, 275 

Bradley, General Omar N., 55, 188 

and Fahy Committee, 350-51,410 

and a segregated Army, 228-29. 317-18, 321, 

326 

Branch, 2d Lt. Frederick, 266 

Bremerhaven, Germany, 129 

Broad, Stuart, 559n 

Brookley Air Force Base, Ala., 512 

Brooks, Lt. Gen. Edward H., 432 

Brown, Edgar G .. 49 

Brown, Ens. )essie, 246 

Brown, John Nicholas, 242, 249. 329- 30, 331 

Brown, Ens. Wesley A., 246, 414 

Brown v. Board of Education, 323,476, 586 

Brownell, Herbert, Jr., 480 

Browning, Charles, 302n 

Bull, Maj. Gen. Harold R., 326, 331 

Buress, Maj. Gen. Withers A., 429n 

Burgess, Carter L .. 494 

Burley, Dan, 30211 

Burns, Maj. Gen. James H., 387 

Byrd, Robert C., 551 

Caffey, Brig. Gen. Benjamin F., 194 

Calypso, 114 

Camp Barry, Ill. , 67 

Camp Campbell, Ky., 327 

Camp Geiger, N.C., 269 

Camp Hanford, Wash ., 481 

Camp LeJeune, N.C., 255,259 

Camp Perry, Va., 148 

Camp Robert Smalls, Ill., 67, 68, 77 

Campbell, 116 

Career Guidance Program (War Deparrment), 

198-99 

Carey, James B., 29511 

Caribbean Defense Command, 190 

Carlton, Sgt. Cornelius H., 440 

Cates, General Clifton B., 334-36, 461-62 

Cavalry Division, 2d, 31-33. 135n, 192, 439 

Cavalry regiments, 9th and lOth, 4, 30-31, 33. 192, 

454 

C.emeteries, national, 224-25 

Chamberlain, Col. Edwin W., 31-32 

Chamberlin, Lt. Gen. Stephen) .. 429 

Chamberlin Board, 429-30, 432, 440 

Charleston, S.C. (shipyard), 485, 486 

Charyk, Joseph V., 563 

Chemung, 86 

Cherokee, Charlie, 316 

OticagoDefender, 316,408 

Chicago Tribtme, 41 

Chief of Staff. See Eisenhower, General of the Army 

Dwight D. 

Chile, 38 

China, 179, 385 

Ch'ongch'on River line, 434 

Civil Rights Act of 1964, 554, 587-88, 590. 595 

Civil rights demonstrations, participation of servicemen in, 514-16, 541 

Civil rights legislation (1964-1966), 477, 554, 

586-90.595.610-12 

Civil rights movement, 608 

and armed forces before World War II, 13-16 

and armed forces during World War II, 18-19, 

23, 56, 123-30 

and Department of Defense, 299-309. 510-17 

and Eisenhower, 474-79.485 

and Johnson, 586-90. 602 

and Kennedy, 473, 477, 504-07, 508-10, 535, 

537, 546,586 

and off-base discrimination, 473, 479-83, 500-04 

post-World War II, 474-79 

and postwar use of Negroes in armed forces, 

129-30. 152 

prior to World War II, 8-13 

and Roosevelt. 8, 18-19 

and Truman, 124, 130, 292-97. 309-10, 483n, 

488 

Civil Rights Subcabinet Gcoup (1961), 506-07 

Civilian Aide to Secretary of War for Negro Affairs. 

See Gibson, Truman K., Jr., Hastic, William 

H.: Ray, Marcus H.: Scott, Emmett J. 

Civilian communities. See also Committee on 

Equality of Opportunity in the Armed Forces 

(Gesell Committee). 

and assignment of black personnel, 37, 223-24, 

262-65. 467-68 

and off-base discrimination, 129, 473, 479-83, 

500,606-08,619-21 

and off-base discrimination overseas, 214-15, 5 78 

and racial incidents, 38, 39. 393-94, 412 

Clark, General Muk W., 133,432-33,443 

Clay, Lt. Gen. Lucius D., 212 

Clifford, Clark M., 308-11, 374, 605 

Colley, Nathaniel S., 537, 552 

Collins, General J. Lawton 

and the Fahy Committee, 369-70 

and integration of the Army, 428-30, 431, 442, 

443,449-51,454, 610n 

Combat Service Group, 2d, 269 

Command of Negro Troops, 44-45 
\ 

INDEX 

Commerce, Department of, 587 

Commission of Inquiry (1948}, 306-07 

Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and 

Training, 300, 302, 390 

Commiuec on Civil Rights (1946}, 294-95 

Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity 

(196 1}' 506 

Committee on Equality of Opportunity in the 

Armed Forces (Gesell Committee}, 535-37 

conclusions of, 538-42 , 566,577-78 

congressioual opposition to, 550-5 1 

and DOD Directive 5120.36 issued. 548 

and final report. 552-55 

and local commanders' responsibilities, 540, 

542-55,561,621 

and off-limits sanctions, 543-44, 546-47, 555, 

581 

operations of. 53 7-38 

reactions to, 545-48 

recommendations of, 542-45, 599 

Committee on Equality of Treatment and Oppor· 

runity in the Armed Forces (Fahy Committee), 

312- 14 ,34 2,616-17 

and the Air Force, 352. 356-57. 398. 407-08, 

4 11-12 

and Army assignments, 368-71 

and Army opposition to rccom mendations, 

359-62 

and Army proposals and coumerproposals, 

360- 68 

and Army quotas, 356.371-75.429-30 

assessment of. 375-78 

and Department of Defense racial policy, 343-48 

and enlistment standards, 357-59 

and initial recommendations, 35 7- 58 

and military efficiency in the Army. 3 50- 56. 428, 

613 

and the Navy, 352, 357-58,4 12, 425-26 

purpose of. 348-50 

Committee for Negro Participation in t he National 

Defense Pmgram (1938), 10 

Committee on Negro Personnel (Navy). 144 -46, 151 

Community faci lities. integrated, availability of for 

servicemen. 512- 14 

Composite Group, 477th, 275. 278 

Composite units 

in the Army. 189-93 

in the Marine Corps. 268-69, 335 

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 126. 478, 504 

Construction Baualion. 80th. 7 5 

Contract compliance program, 51011 

Cooke, Brig. Gen. Elliot D .. 212 

Crabb, Brig. Gen. Jarred V., 283 

Craig, Maj. Gen. Lewis A .. 431-32 

Craig Air Force Base, Ala .. 480, 493 

Crime and disease rates. 206-09, 219. 27 3 

Cn!is, The,9.14,66, 133 

Daniels, Jonathan, 294. 313 

Darden, Colgate, 313 

Darden, Capt. Thomas F .. 76 

637 

Davenport. Roy K .. 199.204 . 352-56. 358.370-72, 

394-95. 53511. 576 

Davis. Col. Benjamin 0 .. Jr., 275. 283-84, 286. 

341,400.402 

Davis. Brig. Gen. Benjamin 0 .. Sr .. 19, 37. 39 . 48. 

53. 231 

Davis. Dowda! H .. 30211,408 

Davis, John W .. 30211 

Dawson, DonaldS .. 313-14, 316 

Dawson William L .. 314 

Defense, Department of. 297-99 

and basic regulations on equal opportunity. 564, 

566 

and civil rights, 298-308. 510-17 

and civilian communities. 473. 479-83. 500, 

607-08. 620-2 1 

and discrimination in the se rvices. 1950's, 

473-74,482-83.500 

and discrimination within the services. 1960's, 

566-80 

and equal opportunity direnivc, 1963. 547-51, 

556-57. 581,619-21 

and fie ld of community race re lations. 531-35 

and integration of dependents' schools, 489-97. 

596-99. 620 

and off-base discrimination, 500-03. 510-16, 

583-85 

and off-base housing, 515-16, 584-85, 589. 

5<)8-606.621 

and off-limits sanctions, 531-34, 543-44, 

54 7-48,556-57.581,604-05.608,621 

and organization of a civil rights office, 558-66 

and overseas assignments, 385-89 

and racial designations, 380-85, 574- 77 

and voluntary compliance programs. 581-86. 

592-93, 602-03. 607-08, 621. See also Committee on Equality of Opportunity in the 

Armed Forces (Gesell Committee); Committee 

on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in 

the Armed Forces (Fahy Committee). 

Defense Appropriations Act, 315 

Defense batta lions 

51st (Composite). 101, 108-10 

52d, 109-10. 262 

Dcnfeld, Admiral Louis E., 167-68 

Depot companies 

2d Medium 269 

7th and 8th, Ill 

Deco. George H .. 225 

Desegregation. See Integration of the four sert1ices. 

Detroit Free Press , 421-22 

Devers. General Jacob L. , 134. 165, 190-92 

DeVoe, Lt. (jg.) Edith, 246 

DeVoto, Bernard. 126-27 

Dewey, Thomas£., 87,309 

Dickey. John$ ., 295n 

Diggs. Charles C., Jr., 503, 520-22, 535.537 
638 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES. 1940-1965 

Dillon, Lt. Comdr. Charles E., 76 

Dillon, Douglas, 508 

Discipline. See Crime and disease rates. 

Discrimination, racial. See also Civilian communities; Committee on Equality of Opportunity in the Armed Forces (Gesell Committee); 

Integration of the fortr services; Racial policies of 

the four services. 

and complaints of in the 1960's, 501- 04, 510, 

520-21.557.571 , 584- 86 

and U.S. Commission on Civil Rights study of 

(1963). 521-22 

Disease rates. See Crime and disease rates. 

District of Columbia v. john R. Thompson Co., 476 

Divine, Maj. Gen. John M., 429?1 

Divisions. See Airborne Division, 82d; Armored 

Division, 2d; Cavalry Division, 2d; Infantry 

divisions; Marine divisions; National Guard 

divisions, 40th and 45th. 

DOD Directive 5120.36, 547- 51 , :>56-57, 581, 

619- 20 

Donahue, Alphonsus J. , 314 

Double V campaign, 9. 17, 56 

Draper, William H., Jr. , 193 

Drew, CharlcsR., 36 

DuBois, William E. B., 14, 124 

Dutton, Frederick G., 506, 508, 512 

Eaker, Lt. Gen. Ira C., 159-60, 196 

Earle Naval Ammunition Depot, N.J. , 254, 263- 65 

Early, Stephen, 15 

Ebemadt, Ferdinand , 298 

Ebony,408,412 

Eddy, Lt. Gen. Manton S., 451 

Edgewood Arsenal, Md., 605 

Education program, EUCOM, 216- 19 

Educational backgrounds, 24- 25, 67, 75 , 137, 

171-72,617-18 

Edwards, Daniel K., 394 

Edwards, Lt. Gen. Idwal H. 

and continued segregation in the Air Force, 

285-89 

and integration plan of 1949. 338-42, 352, 

399-401, 616 

and overseas restrictions, 387 

and Army postwar racial policy, 159, 176 

Efficiency, military, and segregation, 3. 152, 499. 

612-13 

in the Air Force, 270, 276- 77, 280- 81 

in the Army, 18, 20, 24-26, 30-34, 43, 56-57, 

350-56, 428 

in the Marine Corps, 256, 261-66, 334-36 

in the Navy, 62- 63, 76-77, 235-37 

Eisenhower, General of the Army Dwjght D., 192, 

392, 451 

and the Army's racial policy, 227-29, 307. 618 

and civil rights movement, 476-78, 485 

and federal intervention, 473, 482, 487 

and Gillem Board Report, 162 

and integration of dependents' schools, 489-92, 

495. 497- 98 

and Negro i11famry training, 51 - 52 

Ellender, Allen J., II 

Engineer Battalion, 94th, 452, 455 

Engineer Combat Company, 77th, 445 

Engineers, Chief of. 222-23 

Eniwctok, 110 

Enlistment in armed forces, 1960's, and black indifference, 567-69 

Enlistment practices 

in the Air Force, 276, 280, 618- 19 

in the Army, 2)- 26, 32, 178, 182- 84 , 187-89, 

203, 430. 618-19 

intheCoast Guard , 112,114- 15 

in the Marine Corps, 101-04, 107, 257- 61 

in the Navy, 66- 67, 69- 71, 167, 236. 23 7-249, 

421 - 24, 618- 19 

Enlistment standards 

and the Fahy Committee, 356-59 

and interservice controversy over in 1948, 324- 26 

and qualitative distribution program, 394-95, 

415- 16 

Equal opportunity in the 1960's. See also Executive 

Order9981. 

in the Air Force, 561, 563 

in the armed forces 

assessments of, 578- 80, 6!8- 22 

and DOD Directive 5120.36, 546-50, 

555-56,580,619-20 

in the Army, 560- 61 

and Executive Order 10925, 505- 06, 512 

in the Marine Corps, 561 

in the Navy, 560-63 

Ernst, Morris L. , 295n 

Ethiopia and the Assignment of American servicemen, 388-89 

Ethridge, Mark, 62- 63 

European Command, 190, 197, 209, 448n 

and education program, 216- 19 

and integration of, 450-53 

Evans, James C. 

and DOD racial policies, 286, 299. 306-07, 435, 

457, 506n 

and foreign assignment of Negroes, 387 

and integration of naval shipyards, 483, 486 

and new civil rights office, 558 

and off-base discrimination, 479-80, 502, 532-33 

and racial designations, 382, 574-75 

Evans, Joseph, 419 

Ewing, Oscar, 309- 11, 313 

Executive Order 9980, 483 

Executive Order 9981, 291, 309-14, 6!6 

and immediate effect on the Air Force, 338-42 

and immediate effect on the Army, 318-31 

and immediate effect on the Marine Corps, 

334-38 

and immediate effect on the Navy, 331-34 

limitations on, 479-483 
\ 

INDEX 

public reactions to, 315-18 

Executive Order 10925, 505-06, 512 

Executive Order 11063, 506, 517 

Fahy, Charles, 314, 348-51. 352-56, 360-66, 

368-71.376. 378n,410 

Fahy Committee. See Committee on Equality of 

Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed 

Forces (Fahy Committee). 

Fair Employment Practices Commission, 16, 62-63. 

293 

Fairchild, General Muir S. 339 

Faix. Capt. Thomas L. 465 

Falgout, 426 

Far East Command, 197,208,210,216,443-45 

Farmer, James, 478 

Fay, Paul B .. Jr., 538.541-42, 560-62 

Fechtcler, Rear Adm. William M., 245 

Federal Housing Authority, 476-77, 479, 601 

Ferguson, Homer, 479 

Fighter Group, 332d, 29, 275 

Fighter Squadron, 99th, 29. 428 

Fighter Wing, 332d, 282-84, 398-99. 408 

Finkle, Lee, 9 

Fin letter, Thomas K., 384-85 

Finucane, Charles C., 497 

Fish, Hamilton, 11-12 

Fitt, Alfred B. 

and assignments, 577-78 

and dependents' schools, 596-98 

and effort to attract black officer candidates, 

569-70 

as first civil rights deputy, 536n, 551, 559-60, 

563-64, 571n, 579.601 

and Gesell Committee, 546-47 

and racial designations, 576-77 

and volunt.ary action programs, 582-83, 585-86, 

592 

Foner. Jack, 7 

Forrestal, James V .• 57, 59, 34 5. 609 

and changes in Navy's policy, 84-85. 87-89, 

94-96,98. 128-29,235. 244-45,248.614-15 

and Executive Order9981, 311, 314 

and Fahy Committee, 343-44, 356, 376 

and integration approach as Secretary of Defense, 

292, 297-99. 301-02, 305, 307-09. 324-25, 

327,330 

and postwar policy ' aims, 144-45, 147, 151, 

166-70 

Fort Belvoir, Va., 493. 597 

Fort Benning, Ga., 50, 216, 490 

Fort Bliss, Tex., 494 

Fort Bragg, N.C., 223 

ForrDix, N.J., 201,223-24,435- 36 

Fort George G. Meade, Md. , 494, 605 

Fort Holabird, Md., 605 

Fort Hood, Tex., 514-15 

Fort Jackson, S.C .. 223-24, 435 

Fort Knox, Ky., 201, 223, 303, 436 

Fort Leavenworth, Kans .. 209-10 

Fort Lee, Va .. 434. 596 

Fort Lewis, Wash., 223 

Fort Mifflin, Pa., 264, 265 

Fort Ord, Calif., 223-24, 435 

Fort Snelling National Cemetery, Minn .. 225 

Fonas, Abe, 537 

Fowler, Maj. James D., 201-02, 354 

Francis, H. Minton, 559n 

Freedom to Serve. 3 75. 408 

Freeman, Douglas Southall, 313 

Freeman, General Paul, 578 

Freeman Field, Ind., 45, 128, 273 

Fulbright, J. William, 551 

Garrison, Lloyd K., 314 

Garvey, Marcus, 16 

German Army and segregated units, 23tl 

639 

Gesell, Gerhard A., 535-39. 542-44, 547, 552-54, 

561, 604 

Gesell Committee. See Committee on Equality of 

Opportunity in the Armed Forces (Gesell Committee). 

Gibson, Truman K., Jr., 21, 41, 132, 137-38, 

141-42, 157-58, 163. 165, 299-300, 302n, 

304, 310, 558n 

Gillem, Lt. Gen. Alvan C., Jr., 153- 55, 165 

Gillem Board, 153-54, 165-66, 232-33, 275, 278, 

614 

and attitudes toward new policy, 163-65 

conclusions and recommendations of, 154-57, 

161-62,430-31,437,459 

and reactions to recommendations, 157-61 

Gilliam, Jerry, 483 

Gillmor, Reginald E., 314 

Gilpatric, Roswell L., 510, 512-13, 520, 532, 534, 

536n 

Ginzberg, Eli, 450-51 

Gittclsohn, Roland B., 295n 

Godman Field, Ky. , 30, 272 

Goldwater, Barry M., 551 

Goode, James P., 498, 565 

Grafenwohr Training Center, Germany, 217 

Graham, Annie N ., 267 

Graham, Frank P., 295n, 313 

Granger, Lester B., 88, 92, 124, 169, 249-50, 252 

and Fahy Committee, 313-14, 371 

and inspection of black units, 147-51 

and racial problems of Department of Defense, 

301-02,305,307,324,326,484-85 

and recommendations to Navy Department, 

95-98. 144-46, 150-51, 166-68. 614 

and reforms in Steward's Branch, 242, 421-22, 

426 

and shortage of black officers, 245, 247 

Gravely, Lt. Comdr. Samuel L., Jr., 77, BOn, 426 

Gray, Gordon 

and Fahy Committee, 360, 362-64, 367-70, 

373-74 
640 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

and integration of the Army, 428-30 

Great Britain, 37-39 

Great Falls Air Force Base, Mont. , 411 

Great Lakes Training Center, Ill., 67, 77, 79. 82, 244 

Greenland, 38. 386 

Gregg, Bishop J. W .. 302n 

Gross, H. R., ~~0 

Gruemher, General Alfred M., 4~2 

Guam 

and black Marines at, 110, 1~0 . 2~4-~~. 2~8 

and race riot at, 92- 93 

Guide to the Command of Negro NatJal Personnel, 

83-84 

Haas, Francis J., 29~n 

Hague, Rear Adm. W. Mel. , 483 

Haislip, General Wade H., 228-29, 364,440 

Halaby, Najeeb, 386-87 

Hall, Lt. Gen. Charles P., 189-92. 19~ 

Hall, Outward G., ~~0 

Hampton Institute, Va., 67-68 

Handy, General Thomas T., 226, 4~0 -51 

Hannah, John A., 454-56, 486, 489. 499 

Harper, Robert, 398 

Harper v. Virginia Board of E/e,lt'ons, ~ 89 

Hastie, William H. , 19-20, 23, 30, 36, 40-42, 49, 

51, 56, ~~8n 

Havenner, Franck R., 393 

Hawaii, 149. 26~ 

Hayes, Arthur Garfield. 306 

Healey, Capt. Michael, 113n 

Health, Education, and Welfare, Department of, 

492, ~96. 598-99 

Hebert, F. Edward, 5~0 

Hector, Louis, 537 

Heinz, Comdr. Luther C., 414 

Hershey. Maj. Gen. Lewis B., 70. 103, 384 

Hesburgh, Father Theodore, 505 

Hewes, Laurence I., Ill, 53 7, 54 3 

Hill, Maj. Gen. Jim Dan, 321-22 

Hill, Lister, 11, 511 

Hill, T. Arnold, 9. 15 

Hillenkoetter, Capt. Roscoe H .. 145 

Hingham, Mass., 264-65 

Hobby, Oveta Culp, 491-92 

Hodes, Maj . Gen. Henry I., 196-97 

Holcomb, Maj. Gen. Thomas, 64, 100-101, 105-06 

Holifield, Chet, 381 

Holloway, Vice Adm. James L., Jr., 421-23 

Holloway program, 246 

Holmes, John Haynes, 187 

Hope, Lt. Comdr. Edward, 250 

Hoquim, 120-21 

Housing, off-base, 476- 77,479, 502, 506, 584 

and Department of Defense, ~16-17, 581, 

585-86,590,599-608.621 

in Washington, D.C. area, 601-04 

Houston, Charles H., 14, 302n 

Huebner, Lt. Gen. Clarence R., 216-17, 219, 

330-31 

Huff. Sgt. Maj. Edgar R., 472 

Hull, Lt. Gen. John E .. 159 

Humphrey, Hubert H., 309. 392. 488 

Hunter College Naval Training School, N.Y., 88 

Iceland, 38, 179, 385-87 

Infantry t!attalions 

3d of 9th Infantry, 193 

3d of 188th Infantry, 193 

9th, 462 

370th and 371st (Separate), 217n 

Infantry divisions 

1st, 190, 217 

2d, 200 

3d. 327 

9th. 435 

25th, 44~ 

34th, 134 

69th. 53 

88th, 193 

92d, 7, 18, 30. 32. 43, 132. 136-37, 351-52.440 

93d. 7,32,43,135-37.352 

Infantry regiments 

9th, 433 

14th, 444 

24th, 4, 7. 135. 192.436-40, 442-45,459 

25th, 4, 7. 136. 192 

27th, 437 

34th, 444 

35th. 437 

313th, 319 

364th, 436 

365th, 436 

Installation Group, 3202d, 410 

Integration of the Air Force 

directive for (1949), 401-02 

and the Fahy Committee, 352, 3~7 

and local commanders' responsibilities, 400-401 

plan for in 1949. 338-42, 3 76, 397-400 

and reass.ignment of black airmen, 402- 04,410 

and screening at Lockbourne Field, 402-03 

and social situations, 409-11 

success of, 405-12,615-16 

Integration of the Army 

and continental Army commands, 453- 54 

in the Eighth Army, 442-47 

and the European Command, 450-~3 

and military efficiency, 428-34 

in officer training schools, 47-51, 275 

and performance of 24th Infantry Regiment, 

436-40 

in platoons, 51-56 

and review of racial policy (19~ 1), 440- 42 

and social situations, 447,449, 4~6 

success of, 45~-59. 616-17 

and training units, 434-36 

Integration of the Coast Guard, 118-22 

Integration of the Marine Corps 

and assignments of Negroes, 466-68 

and black reserviStS, 267-69 
INDEX 

and the Korean War, 462-66. 617 

new racial policy for ( 1949), 461-62 

and recruit training, 334-35 

and the Steward's Branch, 468-71 

Integration of the Navy 

in the fleet, 77-78, 84-86, 167-68, 614-15 

new plan for in 1949.412-13 

and recruitment of Negroes, 413-18 

and shipyards, 483-87 

and the Steward's Branch, 418-25 

Imclligence levels and test scores, 24, 104, 137-38. 

140, 198-99. 204, 271, 324-25. 372-73. 

521-24, 527, 571-73 

Interstate Commerce Commission, 476, 506. HI 

Investigations on conduct of black soldiers, 210- 13 

Jackson. StephenS., 497, 517 

Jacobs. Rear Adm. Randall, 68-70, 72, 84, 89 

James, Lt. Gen. Daniel (Chappie), Jr., 401 

James Connally Air Force Base, Tex., 40~ 

Javits, Jacob K., 391-92. 435 

Jenkins, Ens. Joseph C., 121 

Johnson, Col. Campbell C., 19. 103 

Johnson, Earl D., 395. 432, 436, 449-50 

Johnson, John H., 302n 

Johnson, Louis A. 

and Fahy Committe, 343. 345-48, 358-62, 

364-67,371,374 

as Secretary of Defense, 380-81, 386-87. 

390-92. 396 

Johnson, Lyndon B., 

and civil rights legislation, 587-91, 602 

and Gesell Committee, 5>6. 552 

Johnson, Mordecai, 247, 285, 302n 

Jones, Col. Richard L .• 316 

joner v. Mayer, 605 

Jordan, Robert E., III, 592 

Justice, Department of. 497. 505.610 

Katzenbach, Nicholas B., 513 

Kean, Maj. Gen. William B., 436-37 

Keeler, Leonard, 211 

Kelly Field, Tex., 128 

Kennedy, John F. 

and civil rights, 473, 477, 504-06, 508-10, 586, 

620 

and Gesell Committee. 535, 537. 546 

and training programs, 574 

Kennedy, Robert F .. 504,506,531-32,553,596 

Kenworthy, Edwin W., 350-H, 356, 360, 362, 

365-70.377-78,408.430 

Kerner Commission, 623 

Key West, Fla., 291.479,498 

Kilgore, Harley M., 212, 392n 

Kimball Dan A., 240, 336, 359. 413,418-20, 484 

King, Admiral Ernest J., 5911, 77, 82, 85-86, 88-90. 

91.94,166 

King, Martin Luther, Jr., 478-79. 588 

Kitzingen Air Base, Germany, 217-19.450 

Knowland, William F., 224 

641 

Knox, Frank, 20fl, 100 

and early views on integration, 59-61, 63- 64, 101 

and induction of Negroes into the Navy, 66-67, 

70-71.81- 82, 86-87 

and the Marine Corps, 106-07 

Korean War, 431-34, 460, 462-65. 613, 617 

Korth, Fred, 452-53. 488, 562-63 

Krock, Arthur, 316 

Kuter, Maj. Gen. Laurence S., 401 

Labrador, 38 

LaFollette, Robert M., Jr., 187 

Lamb, Ann E .. 267 

Langer, William, 308 

Lanham, Brig. Gen. Charles T., 344-46, 361 

Laurier, Louis R., 210, 302fl 

Lee, Ens. John. 246 

Lee, Lt. Gen. John C. H., 51-52. 228 

Lee, Ulysees, 39. 137 

Legal assistance, 581, 587.591,598 

LeGette, Col. Curtis W .. 171 

LeHavre, France, 128 

Lehman, Herbert H., 39211, 393 

Leva, Marx, 234.301 ,308,311,313,327 .343-44 

Lewis, Anthony, 499 

Lewis, Fulton, Jr., 49 

Lewis, lea F., 302 

Lightship No. 115, 122 

Little Rock, Ark .. 476, 477 

Little Rock, Air Force Base, Ark., 496-98 

Local commanders, Air Force, 400-401, 408 

Local commanders, armed forces 

and equal opportunity matters, 556. 561-64, 

582-85,592-93.608,621 

and Gesell Committee's recommendations, 

539-44,554.560,620 

and integration of off-base schools, 597-99 

and local community attitudes, 502-03 

and off-base housing, 600-601 

Local commanders, Army 

and discipline, 207 

and off-base discrimination, 39 

and on-base discrimination, 36, 42, 44-45 

Local commanders, Navy, 83 

Lockbourne Field , Ohio. 275, 277, 281-82, 286, 

341,398-99.402-03 

Lodge, Henry Cabot, 307 

Logan, Rayford W ., II 

Long, John D., 235fl 

Long Island National Cemetery. 224 

Louis, Joe, 66, 300 

Lovett, Robert A .. 30. 489 

Luckman, Charles, 295,1, 314, 314n 

McAfee, Capt. Mildred H., 86-88 

McAlester Naval Ammunition Depot, Okla., 109. 

254, 263 

MacArthur, General Douglas, 14, 197.439. 444,463 

McAuliffe, Maj. Gen. Anthony C .. 432-33. 441, 

443.449-51,453-54,457 
642 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

McCloy, John}. , 21, 23, 128, 188 

and Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies, 

34-3 ~. 42-43. 46, 56-~ 7 

and postwar use of black troops, 130-31, 135. 

143, 153. 154n, 157-58, 16~. ~~8 

McConnaughy, James L., 319, 320 

McCrea, Vice Adm. John L., 383 

MacDill Airfield, Fla., 209. 277 

McFayden, Brig. Gen. B. M., 392 

McGill, Ralph, 313 

McGowan, Maj. Gen. D. W., 594 

McGrath, Earl J. , 489 

McGrath, Howard J .. 314 

MacKay, Cliff W., 302n 

McMahon, Brian, 314 

McNair, Lt. Gen. Lesley J., 43 

McNamara, RobertS., 502, 504, 509, 609 

and Civil Rights Act of 1964. 590-91 

and equal opportunity directive (1963). ~47-48, 

556.619-21 

and equal treatment and opportunity, 530, 

~78-79 

and Gesell Committee, 536, 546-49 

and the National Guard, ~ 19, ~93 

and off-base housing, ~ 17, 600, 602-08 

and off-limits sanctions, ~47-48, ~56, 581, 

604-0~ 

and organization of civil rights apparatus, 558-59. 

~63. ~66 

and racial reform directives, 511,513-,516-17 

and voluntary action programs, ~82, ~86 

McNarney, General Joseph T .. 210 

McNutt, Paul V., 32, 70-71 

Macy, John W., Jr., 575 

Manhattan Beach Training Station, N.Y., Jl4-15. 

121-22 

Manpower shortages, black 

in the Air Force, 280, 282-83 

in the Army, 32-33 ,178,219-22 

in the Navy, 74,414-15, 426 

March, General Peyton C., 235 

March on Washington Movement, '16 

Mare Island, Calif., 92 

Marine Air Group 33, 463 

Marine Air Wing, 1st, 463 

Marine Barracks, Dahlgren, Va., 467 

Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C. , 467 

Marine divisions 

1st, 463-64 

2d. 269 

Marine regiments 

5th, 463 

7th, 463-64 

Maris,- Maj. Gen. WardS., 441 

Marr, Lt. Col. Jack F., 287-88, 288n, 342,616 

Marshall, Burke, ~13. 537, 547 

Marshall, General George C., 43, 49, 55 

and integration, 20-22, 31, 42, 131, 153 

as Secretary of Defense, 380, 392-93. 435, 443. 

449,619 

Marshall, S. L. A., 434 

Marshall, Thurgood, 15, 92, 124 ,438-39. 533 

Marrin, Louis, 302tJ 

Mason, 77-78, 86 

Matthews, Francis P., 295n, 387, 4 12-13 

Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. 404, 493, 511 

Maxwell Field, Ala., 28 

Mays, Benjamin E., 302n 

Meader. George, 212 

Medals of Honor, 440 

Mediterranean theater, 190, 197 

Meetings. segregated, 564-66 

Miami Beach, Fla .. 30, 50, 244 

Midway, 481 

Miller, Donald L., 559n 

Miller, Doric (Doris), 58, 58tJ 

Miller, Lt. Col. Francis P., 212 

Miller, Loren, 302n 

Minneapolis Spokesman, 408 

Mississippi Summer Project, 588-89 

Mitchell, Clarence, 384, 393-94,474,478-79, 484 

Mobilization plans, 10-13, 18- 19, 24, 28 

Montford Point, N.C., 101 , 108-09, 253-55, 258, 

269, 335 

Montgomery, Ala., 503 

Morale 

in the Air Force, 282, 398-99 

in the armed forces, 528, 531, 542 

in the Army, 20, 34-39, 350-51 . 442 

in the Marine Corps, 105, 110, 469-71 

in the Navy, 75. 148- 49 

Morgan v. Virginia, 475 

Morris, Thomas D., 586, 603 

Morse, Wayne, 303, 390 

Morse, Brig. Gen. Winslow C., 154 

Moskowitz, Jack, 559n 

Multer, Abraham]., 393. 595 

Muse, Benjamin, 537, 542, 552, 621 

Myrdal, Gunnar, 3, 9. 14 

Nash, Phillco, 310-11, 313. 366, 369 

National Association for the Advancement of 

Colored People (NAACP) 

and the Army, 31 , 49. 293, 438, 518 

and enlistment quotas, 186 

and integration in the armed forces. 8, 14-16, 

126, 304, 500 

and the Marine Corps, 462 

and the Navy, 62, 66 

and off-limits sanctions, 55 7 

and racial violence, 393 

and segregated dependents' schools, 498 

and segregated national cemeteries, 22 5 

National Defense Act of 1945, 320, 322 

National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs 

(1948), 243, 285, 304-05. 324 

National Emergency Committee Against Mob 

Violence (1946), 294 

National Guard 

continued segregation in, 518-20, 553-54 
INDEX 

and Executive Order 9981, 318-22 

integration of, 593-95 

National Guard divisions, 40th and 45th, 443, 

445-46 

National Negro Congress. 8, 66 

National Negro Publishers Association, 302 

National Security Act of 1947. 297-98 

National Urban League, 8, 95. 126,241,414,615 

Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps, 246-47. 

414- 15 

Navy Circular Letter 48-46, 168-70 

Nelson, Lt. Dennis D., 244, 246. 250, 305,484 

and recruitment of officer candidates, 247 , 4 14, 

417 

and reform of Steward's Branch, 242-43. 419 

New Orleans, La., 476 

New Orleans Naval Air Station, La. , 495 

New York Times, 304, 324, 363 

Newspapers. See Press, Negro; publications by 

r;ame. 

Nichols, Lee, 426-27, 493-94 

Niles, David K. , 294-95 . 314, 365-66, 373-74 

Nimitz, Admiral Chester W ., 94, 166-67 

Nkrumah, Kwame, 509 

Noble, Maj. Gen. Alfred H., 334 

Norfolk, Va., 73, 77, 483.485 . 498 

Norfolk journal and Guide, 163, 258 

Northland, 118 

Nugent, Maj. Gen. Richard E. , 287-88, 405 

Nunn, William G., 302n 

Nurse Corps, U.S. Navy. 72, 74-75,96. 247-48 

Occupational distribution of assignments, 523-27, 

572- 73 

Occupational specialties, 177, 194-95.201,354-55, 

377, 524-27, 572-73 

Off-base equal opportunity inventories, 583-85, 592 

Off-limits sanctions by Department of Defense 

and housing, 580, 604-05, 608, 621 

and question of using, 532- 33 

recommended by Gesell Committee, 543-44, 

547-48. 556. 581 

and requested by NAACP, 556 

Office of War Information, 40 

Officer training schools. integration of 

in the Air Force, 286 

in the Army, 30.47-51 

in the Marine Corps, 266 

in the Navy, 82 , 87 

Officers, black 

in the Air Force, 278, 282-83, 398. 406 

in the armed forces, 568-71 

in the Army, 30, 36-37, 47-51. 194. 219-23, 

226 

in the Coast Guard, 119, 121-22 

in the Marine Corps, Ill, 266-67, 461, 471-72 

in the Navy, 79-82 , 86-87. 243-48, 332, 

414-15,41 7-18, 426 

Officers, white, attitudes of 

in the Army. 37, 133-34 

in the Navy, 82-84, 89-90 

Ohly, John H., 299. 327 

OIR Notice CP75 (1952), 483-84 

Okinawa Base Command, 190 

Old, Maj. Gen. William D., 282, 284 

O'Meara, Joseph, 537 

Operations Research Office, 441-42 

Opportunity, 67 

Osrhagen, Clarence H .. 398 

Overhead spaces 

in the Air Force, 279 

in the Army, 177, 195-97 

Overseas employment of black servicemen 

by the Army, 37-38 

and the Gesell Committee, 552-53 

by the Marine Corps, 109-1 1 

restrictions on, 38, 179. 385-89 

Overton, John H. , II 

Oxford, Miss., 476, 505 

643 

Pace, Frank, Jr., 224, 376, 377n, 395. 443-44,447 

Padover, Saul K .. 294 

Palmer, Dwight, 314 

Panama Canal Zone, 38, 179. 386 

Parachute Battalion, 55 5th, 190-92 

Parks, Maj. Gen. Floyd L., 186-87 

Parks, Rosa, 124, 478 

Parris Island, S.C., 334 

Parrish. Col. Noel F., 273, 279 

Passman, Otto E., 550 

Pastore, John, 392n 

Patch, Lt. Gen. Alexander M., 53 

Patterson, Robert P., 21-22,28, 46,225 

and conduct of black troops in Europe, 212-13 

and Gillem Board , 153, 162-63, 215. 232 

and quotas, 176, 183-84, 187-88 

sued for violation of Selective Service Act, 182, 

186 

Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md., 494 

Paul, NormanS. 

and civil rights legislation, 591, 597-98 

and off-base discrimination, 582, 585-86 

and organization of civil rights apparatus. 558-59, 

564, 566 

Paul, Maj . Gen. WillardS., 158-59.217, 225 

and assignment of black personnel, 194-96, 202, 

213-14 

and composite units, 192-93 

and continued segregation, 231, 322 

and expansion of school quotas, 198-201 

and National Guard integration, 318 

and postwar quotas, 176-79, 181, 185-86, 

188- 89 

and shortage of black officers. 219-22 

Paxton, Brig. Gen. Alexander G., 322 

PC 1264. 77 

Pea Island Station, N.C. 112, 115 

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 148 

Pensacola Naval Air Station, Fla., 493. 542-43 

Personnel Policy Board, DOD, 398, 402 
644 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940-1965 

and Fahy Committee, 344-48, 358, 360 

and radal designations, 381-84,574 

Persons, Wilton B .. 485 

Petersen, 2d Lt. Frank E., Jr., 472 

Petersen, Howard C., 163-64, 232 

and postwar quotas, 177 . 187 

and postwar racial reforms, 223-24, 279 

Philadelphia, Miss., 588 

Philadelphia Depot of Supplies, Pa., I 09 

Pick, Maj. Gen. Lewis A., !54 

Pinchot, Gifford, 63 

Pine Bluff Arsenal, Ark., 494 

Piusburgh Courier, 10, 126, 164, 285, 316, 367. 

399.408 

Platoons, integration of, 51-56 

P/essy v. Ferguson, 6 

Poletti, Charles, 59 

Port Chicago, Cali.f.. 263 

Port Hueneme, Calif., 93 

Powell, Adam Clayton, and discrimination in the 

services, 248, 304, 388-89. 423, 425, 468, 482, 

485. 532 

Prairie View A&M. Tex., 571 

Press, Negro. See also by name of pubficatiOtl. 

and equal treatment in the armed forces, 10, 

42-43, 126, 132-33, 169, 258. 284-85. 302, 

304 

and Executive Order 9981, 316, 324, 365 

Price, Maj . Gen. Charles F. B .. 1 IO-U 

Project CLEAR, 442,449,457 

Promotions 

in the Air Force, 284 

in the armed forces. 5 71-72 

in the Army, 133, 322 

in the Coast Gua;d, 121 

in the Marine Corps, 150. 471-72 

in the Navy, 75, 79,417-18 

Provisional Marine Brigade, 1st, 463 

Public Laws 815 and 874,487-88 

Puner, Morton, 499 

Pursuit Squadron, 99th. See Fighter Squadron, 99th. 

Qualitative Distribution of Military Manpower Pro· 

gram, 394-95,416-17 

Quartermaster General, 222, 225 

Quesada, Lt. Gen. Elwood R., 282 

Quotas, Air Force, 615-16 

Quotas, Army, 25-26,32, 156n, 158, 166,615-16 

assessments of, 202-05, 458-59 

and enlistment practices, 182-84, 187-89. 203 

and expansion of for schools, 198-202 

and the Fahy Committee, 356, 371-75, 429-30 

and postwar opposition to, 176-81, 187 

and qualitative balance, 184-86 

Quotas, Coast Guard, 115 

Quotas, Marine Corps 

postwar, 172,174,255-56 

and postwar recruitment efforts. 257 -61 

in World War Il, 103 

Quotas, Navy, 69-71 

Rabb, Maxwell, M .. 482, 485 . 492 

Racial designations, 224. 380-85, 5 74-77 

Racial incidents, 126, 393 

in the Air Force, 409 

in the Army, 38-39. 45, 128, 209-10 

in the Marine Corps, 92-93. Ill 

in the Navy, 75 . 92-94, 128-29 

Racial policies. Air Force 

1940-1947, 271-80 

and immediate effect of Executive Order 9981, 

338-42 

and military traditions, 270 

and need for change of. 280-90 

Racial policies. Army 

and arguments for cominued segregation, 227-29 

and an assessment of segregation in 1948, 231-33 

and enlisted opinions on integration, 229-30 

and immediate effect of Executive Order 9981, 

318-31 

and immediate postwar. See Gillem Board. 

and military traditions, 20. 234-35 

postwar, 213-15 

and postwar opposition to quotas, 176-81, 187 

and postwar performance evaluation of black 

ttoops, 132-43 

and reforms in 1947, 223-26 

and search for a new postwat policy, 130-32. 

141-43, 151 

in World War II, 17-24, 34, 39-46 

Racial policies, Coast Guatd 

and limited integration, 118-22 

pre-World War II experience, 112-13 

in World Warll, 114-17 

Racial policies, Marine Corps 

and immediate effect of Executive Order 9981, 

334-38 

immediate postwar, 170-74, 253-54. 266-67 

and military traditions, 100, 103, 170. 174, 269 

and search for a postwar policy, 149-50 

and steps toward integration, 266-69 

in World Warll, 100-12 

Racial policies. Navy 

between world wars, 58 

and blood processing, 36n 

and commissioning of black officers, 79-82 

and development of a wartime policy, 59-67 

and employment of black recruits, 67-75 

and failure to attract Negroes, 68-69, 248-52, 

415-18,426,562-63 

and immediate effect of Executjve Order 9981, 

331-34 

and immediate postwar, 166-70 

and military traditions, 234-35, 237, 252 

and reforms under Forrestal, 84-9 2, 94-98 

and search for a postwar policy, 14 3-46, 150- 5 1 

and Special Programs Unit reforms, 75-79, 

82-83.~7-88 

Radal policies, and social change 

in the armed forces, 21-22, 39, 227, 229, 232, 

317,610,612 
INDEX 

and Congress, 379-80, 389-90, 550-:51 

Randolph, A. Philip 

and civil rights movement, 478 

and Executive Order 9981, 311, 316 

and integration of the armed forces, 15-16, 

66-67,124,267.390 

and proposed draft bill, 300, 302-06, 616 

Randolph Field, Tex., 275, 286 

Ray, (Lt. Col.) Marcus H., 133, 163, 211, 319, 55811 

and EUCOM education program, 216, 219 

and postwar manpower needs, 177-78, 184 

and postwar racial reforms, 223-24, 279, 330 

and survey of black soldiers in Europe, 212-15 

Recreational facilities, 37-38, 45-46, 411, 511-12 

Recruitment. See Enlistment practices. 

Red Cross, 36 

Reddick. L. D., 163, 300 

Reeb, James, 589 

Reenlistment. See Enlistment practices. 

Reese Air Force Base, Tex., 493 

Reeves, Frank D., 508 

Regimental Combat Team, 25th, 135. 189,216 

Reid, Thomas R., 344-48, 358-60 

Render, Frank W., II, 55911 

Reserve Officers' Training Corps, 221, 570-71 

Reserves, Army, integration of, 519-20 

Reuther, WalterP., 187,478 

Reynolds, Gram, 300, 306, 390 

Reynolds, Hobson, E., 302n 

Ribicoff, Abraham, 596 

Richardson, Elliot, C., 496 

Ridgway, General Matthew B., 439. 442- 48, 617 

Riley, Capt. Herbert D., 330 

Rivers, L. Mendel, 550, 605 

Robinson, Brig. Gen. Ray A .. 260, 266, 268 

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 8, 20, 74, 75n, 103 

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 59. 235 

and civil rights, 8 

and integration in the Army, 15-16, 18-19 

and integration in the Navy, 60-65, 69-73. 87, 

97,101,609 

Roosevelt, Franklin D., Jr., 295n 

Roosevelt, James, 479 

Rosenberg, Anna M., 392-93. 436, 443-44, 483. 

488-89, 619 

Rowan, Carl T., SOn 

Royall, Kenneth C., 188,212,232 

and enlistment standards, 324 

and Executive Order 9981, 311-13 

and the Fahy Committee, 347-48, 351 

and fuHher integration in the Army, 322-24 

and integration experiments, 326-29 

and integration of reserve components, 320-21 

and shortage of black offkers, 221-22 

Rudder, 2d Lt. John E., 266-67 

Runge, Carlisle P. 

and the National Guard, 518-19 

and off-base discrimination, 502, 506n, 532, 

534-35 

and racial reform directives, 511-13, 515 

Rusk, Dean, 184, 387 

Russell, Ens. Harvey C., 122 

Russell, Richard B., 308, 389-90,456-57 

Sabath, Adolph J., 391 

St. Julien's Creek, Va., 75 

Saipan, 254-55, 258 

Saltonstall, Leverett, 390 

Samoa, Ill 

Samuels, Lt. Qg.) Clarence, 121 

San Antonio, Tex., 277 

Sargent, Lt. Comdr. Christopher S., 76, 242 

Schmidt, Maj. Gen. Harry, 104-05 

Schneider, J. Thomas, 383 

Schools. Army, and quotas, 198-202 

Schools, dependems' 

and impact aid legislation, 487-89 

off-base, 476. 496-98. 596-99. 621 

on-post, 489 

Schuyler, GeorgeS .. 9. 300 

Scotia, N.Y., 265 

Scott, Emmett, J., 19. 558 

Sea Cloud, 119-22 

645 

Secretary of the Air Force. See Finletter, Thomas K.; 

Symington. W. Stuaf!. 

Secretary of the Army. See Gray, Gordon; Pace, 

Frank, Jr.; Royall, Kenneth C.; Stevens, Robert 

T. 

Secretary of Defense. See Clifford, Clark M.; Forrestal, }ames V.; Johnson. Louis A.; Lovett, 

Robert A.; McNamara, Robert S.; Marshall, 

General George C.; Wilson, Charles E. 

Secretary of the Navy. See Anderson, Robert B.; Forrestal, James V.: Kimball Dan A. ; Knox, Frank; 

Matthews. Francis P.: Sullivan, John L. 

Secretary of War. See Patterson, Robert P.: Royall, 

Kenneth C.; Stimson, Henry L. 

Segregation. See Discrimination, racial. 

Selective Service Act of 1940, 10-13, 32, 70, 612, 

614 

Selective Service: Act of 1948, 299-300, 303-04, 

308, 315,612 

Selective Service System, 69, 4 3 5 

and quotas, 25-26, 182 

and racial designations, 381, 383-84 

Selfridge Field, Mich., 128 

Selma, Ala., 503. 588-89 

Sengstackc, John H ., 314, 537 

"Services and Their Relations with the Community, 

The," 507 

Sexton, Vice Adm. Walton R., 114-15 

Shaw, Bernard, 338 

Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., 281 

Sherrill, Henry Knox, 295n 

.Shipyards, naval, integration of, 483-87 

Shishkin, Boris, 295n 

Shulman, StcphenN., 559n, 570-72 

Signal Construction Detachment, 449th, 210 

Skinner, Lt. Comdr. Carlton, 118-21 

Smedberg, Vice Adm. William R .. 508 
646 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES, 1940- 1965 

Smith, Lt. Gen. Oliver P., 462, 464 

Smith, Lt. Gen. Walter Bedell, 52 

Smith College, Mass., 87 

Smothers, Curtis R., 55911 

Snyder, Rear Adm. Charles P., 63- 64 

Sollat. Ralph P .. 393 

Somcrvell. General Brehoo B., 54- 55 

Sommers, Lt. Col. Davidson. 142 

South Boston, Mass. , 77 

Southern Christian Leadership Council, 478 

Spaatz, General Carl, 

and assignments, 195- 96, 285 

and postwar quotas, 176, 180- 81 

SPARS, 74, 122 

Special Training and Enlistment Program (STEP), 

568 

Spe11cer, 121 

Spencer. Comdr. Lyndon, 114 

Sprague, Rear Adm. Thomas L. , 414-15, 419- 20 

Stanley, Frank L .. 302?1 

State, Department of, 386-87, 389 

Stennis. John. 550- 51 

Stevens, Robert T., 490 

Stevenson, Adlai E., 59. 80- 81 

Stevenson, William E., 314 

Steward's Branch 

Coast Guard, 113, 116-17 

Marine Corps, 107- 08, 255- 57, 259- 61, 460, 

468- 71 

Navy, 58, 145 , 151, 236, 238- 43, 332- 33. 

418- 25 

Stewart, Tenn., 498 

Stickney, Capt. Fred, 359 

Stimson, Henry 1., 20- 21, 32- 34, 38, 43, 49, 69. 

128. 131 . 135 

Strategic Air Command, 284 

Strength ratios, Air Force, 276. 28011, 397, 405 

Strength ratios, armed forces, 1962- 1968, 568 

Strength ratios, Army. 24, 33 

1946- 1948, 181- 82, 185-86,326 

in Korean War, 430, 450, 457- 58 

postwar overseas, 208 

Srrength ratios, Coast Guard, 116- 17, 122 

Strength ratios, Marine Corps 

posrwar, 256,326, 336,472 

in World War II, 102-03, 111 

Strength ratios, Navy 

in 1941, 58 

1945-1948, 98, 236. 238. 250. 326. 332 

1949- 1960,412,415-16 

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 

(SNCC), 478 

Sullivan. John 1., 237, 242, 311, 335, 352 

Surveys 

on Army segregation (1942-1943). 40 

and enlisted opinion on segregation, 229- 30 

and Harris on open housing, 590 

and Hodes on overhead spaces, 196-98 

on integration of platoons, 54- 55 

by U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. 521-22 

of Washington. D.C. housing, 601 

Sweetgum, 122 

Swing. Lt. Gen. Joseph M., 453 

Symington, W. Stuan, 286- 87.311.320,329,387 

and Executive Order 9981, 338- 39. 341 

and the Fahy Committee, 347, 352 

and integration plan of 1949, 397- 98. 407, 409, 

615 

Tactical Air Command, 275, 277. 280-84 

Taft, Robert A., 308 

Talbott, Harold E., 480, 493 

"Talented tenth," 75, 123 

Talmadge, Herman E., 550 

Tank battalions 

64th, 445 

509th and 510th, 454 

Taylor, Maj . Gen. Maxwell D. , 432, 441,443 

Thomas, Charles S., 486 

Thomas, Lt. Gen. Gerald C., 172-74 , 254-55 , 

258- 59.268,466 

Thompson, Pfc. William, 440 

Thurmond, Strom, 310 

TianaBeach, N.Y. , 116 

Tilly, Dorothy, 295n 

Tobias, Channing H. , 295 , 300, 302n 

Townsend, Willard, 302n 

Training 

in the Air Force, 274- 76, 278-79. 403 

in the armed forces. 572-74 

in the Army, 25. 28- 30, 47- 52, 434-36 

in the Coast Guard, 114-15 

in the Marine Corps, 102, 108- 09 

in the Navy, 67-68, 73, 77, 82 , 87- 88, 91, 243 

Training camps, posrwar location of, 223- 24 

Transportation, Chief of, 222 

Transportation facilities, 38, 45, 148 

Trieste, 387 

Trinidad Base Command, 38. 190 

Troop Carrier Command, I, 273 

Truman, Harty S. 

and civil rights, 124, 130, 291-96, 308-09, 483n, 

488 

and Executive Order 9981, 291, 310-12, 315, 

317, 473.609, 612 

and the Fahy Committee. 365-66. 369. 374-76, 

379 

and segregation in the services, 304, 308 

Truscott, Lt. Gen. Lucian K .. Jr., 134 

Turkey, 388 

Tuskegee, Ala .. 28-30. 271 - 73. 275 

United Services Organization, 539-40 

Units, attached v. assigned, 190-93 

Universal military training, 142 

U.S. Coast Guard Academy, 508 

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 477, 502 , 507, 

511.514, 518 

and Civil Rights Act of 1964, 587. 599 

and study of racial discrimination (1963). 521-22, 
\ 

INDEX 

B8, 541,566 

U.S. Commissioner of Education, 489-90. 492 

U.S. Congress 

and the armed forces. 142, 379-80, 389-94, 398, 

456-57.550-52.568,579.582,600 

and civil rights legislation, 477. 554, 586-90. 595 

and Senate Special Investigations Committee, 

2ll-12 

U.S. Military Academy, 221 

U.S. Office of Education, 487-88 

U.S. Supreme Court, 6, 292. 323, 475-7 7, 586, 605 

Ulilization of Negro Manporuer in the Ar-my, 371 

V-12 program, 80-81, 243, 247 

Vance, Cyrus R., 513, 536n, 565, 595. 601-04 

Vandegrift, General Alexander, 171, 173-74, 255, 

259. 265-66 

Vandenberg, General Hoyt S., 283, 340, 399. 401, 

405,409 

VanNess, Lt. Comdr. Donald 0 ., 76 

VanVoorst, Col. M., 429n 

Venereal disease rates, 208-09, 219 

Vinson, Carl, 339. 398, 551 

Voluntary compliance programs, 581-86, 592-93, 

602-03,608,621 

Votes, black, 8, 475 

and 1948 election, 307, 309. 316. 379 

legislation for, 475. 588-89 

Voting Righrs Act of 1965. 475 

WAAC's, 33, 51,434 

Waesche, Rear Adm. Russell R., 114, 119' 

Wagner, Robert F., 11 

Walker, Addison, 61-63 

Walker, Lt. Gen. Walton H., 437 

Wallace, Henry A., 307, 309 

War Department Circular No. 105, 177 

War Department Circular No. 124 

and Gillem Board Report, 162, 206, 215, 223, 

233. 322 

and provisions of, 189, 192. 220-21 , 231 

War Department Pamphlet No. 20-6. 4 5 

War Manpower Commission, 69 

Warnock, Brig. Gen. Aln D .. 154 

Washington, BookerT., 13 

Washington, D.C., and off-base housing. 601-04, 

606 

Washington Post, 304, 367 

Watson, Col. Edwin M., 14 

Watts, Calif .. 589 

WAVES, 72,74, 86-88,247-48. 332 

Weaver, George L. P .. 302n 

Webb. James E .. 386 

Wesley, Caner, 302n 

White, Lee C., 537-38. 552. 565. 574 

White, Walter F., 224, 384. 393 

647 

and civil rights movement, 294, 302n, 375, 

484-85. 492 

and EUCOM's training program, 217n 

and integration of the armed fotces, 9. 14-15, 31, 

49. 93. 124, 300, 311,439. 471 

Whiting, Capt. Kenneth, 64 

Wilkins, Roy. 16, 247, 302y, 315, 590 

Willkie, Wendell L., 19.66 

Wilson. Charles E. (Secretary of Defense), 480, 

490-91.426,499-500 

Wilson, Charles E., 295. 313 

Wilson, Maj . Gen. Winston P., 554 

Winstead, Arthur A .. 390. 398, 492 

Wofford, Harris L., 506-08. 529, 587, 599-600 

Women, black 

in the Marine Corps Women's Reserve, 74, 267 

in the Nurse Corps, U.S. Navy, 72, 74-75. 96. 

247-48 

intheWAAC's, 33. 51,434 

in the WAVES, 72, 74, 86-88, 247-48. 332-33 

Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). See 

WAAC's. 

Women's Army Corps (WAC). See WAAC's. 

Women's Reserve, U.S. Marine Corps, 74, 267 

Wood, Capt. Hunrer, Jr., 167 

Woodard, Sgt. Issac, Jr. , 129 

Woods, Col. Samuel A., Jr., 101 

Woodward, C. Vann , 474-76 

Wright Field, Ohio. 279 

Yarmolinsky, Adam 

and civil rights, 424, 50611, 508, 510, 512 

and Gesell Committee, 535- 36. 613, 620- 21 

and need for a new DOD racial policy, 531, 

534-35 

Yokohama Base Command, 190 

Young, P. B .• Jr. , 302n 

Young, Thomas W., 30211 

Young, WhimcyM .. Jr .. 537.541,554 

Youngdahl , Luther W., 320 

Zuckert, Eugene M., 285. 290. 386 

and Air Force integration plans, 338-41, 398, 

401-02,406 

and civilian communities. 479. Bl 

and the Fahy Committee, 345. 350, 352 

and local commanders, 534. 563 

Zundel, Brig. Gen. Edwin A., 437 

'(:r U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 2001 - 48C>-494