Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 Part 45

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.[12-67]

[Footnote 12-67: Memo, Leva for Forrestal, 26 Jul 48, SecDef files.]

Approvals were quickly gathered from interested cabinet officials. The Attorney General pa.s.sed 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 read the order twice (p. 312) and said, "tell the President that I not only have no objections but wholeheartedly approve, and we'll go along with it."[12-68]

[Footnote 12-68: Interv, Nichols with Ewing: Ltr, Atty Gen to President, 26 Jul 48, 1285-0, copy in Eisenhower Library.]

The historic doc.u.ment, 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 President of the United States, 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 that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to 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 committee 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 into 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 to 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 authorized and directed to cooperate with the Committee in its work, and to 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 to 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 doc.u.ments 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 HARRY S. TRUMAN July 26, 1948

As indicated by the endors.e.m.e.nt of such diverse protagonists as Royall and Randolph, the wording of the executive order was in part both vague and misleading. The vagueness was there by design. The failure to mention either segregation or integration puzzled many people and angered others, but it was certainly to the advantage of a president who wanted to 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 treatment and opportunity with its portent for the next generation was particularly appropriate.

Truman, however, was not allowed to remain vague for long. (p. 313) 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.[12-69]

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.

[Footnote 12-69: Presidential News Conference, 29 Jul 48, _Public Papers of the President_, 1948, p.

422.]

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 a.s.sistant, Donald S. Dawson, wrote Forrestal that he would be glad to talk to him about the seven members.[12-70] 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.[12-71]

[Footnote 12-70: Ltr, Dawson to Forrestal, 30 Jul 48, SecDef files.]

[Footnote 12-71: Memos, Leva for Forrestal, 3 and 12 Aug 48; Ltr, Forrestal to President, 3 Aug 48, D54-1-3, SecDef files.]

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."[12-72] 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 p.r.o.nouncement on the subject. He wanted the nominees questioned to make sure they could give "fair consideration"

to the subject.[12-73] Royall favored Jonathan Daniels, Ralph McGill of the Atlanta _Const.i.tution_, Colgate Darden, president of the University of Virginia, and Douglas Southall Freeman, distinguished Richmond historian.[12-74] Names continued to be bruited about. (p. 314) 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."[12-75]

[Footnote 12-72: Ltr, Royall to President, 17 Sep 48, OSA 291.2 (17 Sep 48).]

[Footnote 12-73: Ibid.]

[Footnote 12-74: Memo, Royall for Forrestal, 10 Sep 48, OSA 291.2 (10 Sep 48).]

[Footnote 12-75: Memo, Leva for Forrestal, 1 Sep 48, and Handwritten Note by Forrestal, D54-1-3, SecDef files.]

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 subst.i.tuted for Billikopf's.[12-76]

[Footnote 12-76: Memo, Leva for Forrestal, 18 Sep 48, D54-1-3, SecDef files.]

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 a.s.sistant 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 reputation 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. Sengstacke, 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 strongly 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.[12-77]

[Footnote 12-77: Interv, Nichols with Ewing; Interv, Blumenson with Leva. Donahue resigned for health reasons shortly after the committee began its work; see Ltr, Donahue to Truman, 23 May 49, Truman Library. Luckman did not partic.i.p.ate at all in the committee's work or sign its report. The committee's active members, in addition to its chairman, were Granger, Sengstacke, Palmer, and Stevenson.]

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.

CHAPTER 13 (p. 315)

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 a.s.surance 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 "do-nothing" 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 to the silence. Besides, segregationists could do little in an immediate legislative way to counteract the presidential command. Congress had already pa.s.sed 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 pragmatic about the reasons (p. 316) for social reform.[13-1] 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 ent.i.tled "What About Prejudice?"[13-2]

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.[13-3]

[Footnote 13-1: Columbia University Oral Hist Interv with Wilkins.]

[Footnote 13-2: Chicago _Defender_, August 7 and August 14, 1948.]

[Footnote 13-3: Pittsburgh _Courier_, August 7, August 28, and September 25, 1948.]

These affirmations of support for Executive Order 9981 in the major black newspapers fitted in neatly 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 advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _Defender_ under the heading "By His Deeds Shall Ye Know Him."[13-4] 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 comment, 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.[13-5]

[Footnote 13-4: Chicago _Defender_, August 21, 1948.]

[Footnote 13-5: New York _Times_, September 12, 1948.]