Kenneth Claiborne Royall Kenneth Claiborne Royall ( July 24 , 1894 – May 25 , 1971 ) was a United States Army general and the last person to hold the office of Secretary of War . That position was abolished in 1947 , and Royall served as the first Secretary of the Army ( a successory position ) from 1947 to 1949 . Life and career . A native of Goldsboro , North Carolina , Royall graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , where he was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity , and Harvard Law School before serving in World War I . He then practiced law and was elected to the North Carolina Senate as a Democrat . At the beginning of World War II , he became a colonel in the U . S . Army . According to a 2006 newspaper column by Jack Betts , " When eight Nazis bent on mayhem came ashore on Long Island in 1942 , they were soon caught and ordered to stand trial in a secret military tribunal . President Roosevelt appointed Royall to defend them , but the president didn ' t want any foolishness . He wanted the Nazis executed , the sooner the better . Royall ' s orders were to stay away from civilian courts . Royall wrote Roosevelt that he didn ' t think the president had authority to convene a secret court to try his clients , and asked the president to change his order . Roosevelt refused — whereupon Royall appealed to the U . S . District Court , arguing the secret tribunal was unconstitutional . The court rejected that argument , so Royall and other lawyers in his office appealed to the Supreme Court . The Supreme Court rejected Royall ' s argument in a brief announcement in July 1942 , and upheld the right of the president to appoint a secret tribunal . But Royall had succeeded in getting civilian court review of the tribunals ' constitutionality despite the president ' s preference to hush things up . The Supreme Court published a fuller opinion in October , saying , ' Constitutional safeguards for the protection of all who are charged with offense are not to be disregarded . ' By then , six of Royall ' s clients were dead . They were tried , convicted and executed in August 1942 , days after the Supreme Court ' s brief announcement upholding Roosevelt ' s tribunals . Two were sent to prison . Royall later said he believed his defense of the Nazis was the most important work he did in a long and illustrious career . He was promoted to brigadier general . He served as Under Secretary of War from November 9 , 1945 until July 18 , 1947 . President Truman named him Secretary of War in 1947 . He became the first Secretary of the Army two months later . Royall was forced into retirement in April 1949 for continuing to refuse to desegregate the Army even nearly a year after President Truman promulgated Executive Order 9981 . In December 1949 , Royall became a partner at the prestigious New York City law firm of Dwight , Harris , Koegel and Caskey , becoming the firm ' s head in 1958 . The firm was later renamed Rogers & Wells , and subsequently Clifford Chance Rogers & Wells after its merger with British firm Clifford Chance . He died in Durham in 1971 . His son , Kenneth Claiborne Royall , Jr . ( 1919 – 1999 ) served in the North Carolina House of Representatives from 1967 to 1972 and in the state Senate from 1973 to 1992 .