Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 Part 52

[Footnote 14-49: Interv, Nichols with Fahy, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]

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.[14-50] 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 premise.

[Footnote 14-50: Fahy Cmte, "Second Interim Report to the President," 27 Jul 49, FC file.]

While the committee's logic was una.s.sailable 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 morale and efficiency of its fighting forces by integrating these (p. 356) 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 rea.s.sign 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 apt.i.tude by forcing the other services to share equally in the burden of training and a.s.similating 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.[14-51]

[Footnote 14-51: Interv, author with Davenport, 31 Oct 71.]

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.[14-52]

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 a.s.signment: the racial quota must be abandoned in favor of a quota based on apt.i.tude.

[Footnote 14-52: Fahy Cmte, "Initial Recommendations by the President's Committee 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.]

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.[14-53] Fahy, at least, was not prepared to settle for that. His solution, harmonizing with his belief in the efficacy of long-range practical change and his estimate of the committee's strength vis-a-vis the services' strength, was (p. 357) to prepare a "list of suggestions to guide the Army and Navy in its [_sic_] determinations."[14-54] The suggestions, often referred to by the committee as its "Initial Recommendations," would in the fullness of time, Fahy thought, effect substantial reforms in the way the Negro was employed by the services.

[Footnote 14-53: Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 5 May 49, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]

[Footnote 14-54: Fahy Cmte, "A Progress Report for the President," 7 Jun 49, FC file.]

The committee's recommendations, sent to the Personnel Policy Board in late May 1949, are easily summarized.[14-55] 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 time 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 a.n.a.lysis 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.

[Footnote 14-55: Min, 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 to Fahy Cmte, "A Progress Report for the President", 7 Jun 49, FC file. Excerpts from the "Initial Recommendations"

were sent to the services via the Personnel Policy Board, which explains the doc.u.ment in the SecNav's files with the penciled notation "Excerpt from Fahy Recommendation 5/19." See also Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 16 May 49, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]

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 be accomplished, as Davenport had warned, without very (p. 358) 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 every child to its benefits.[14-56] 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.

[Footnote 14-56: Memo, Kenworthy for Chief of Military History, 13 Oct 76, CMH.]

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 interpret the executive order and thus leaving unclear whether the President wanted across-the-board integration, and if so how soon.[14-57] 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 to enforce and would discriminate against white servicemen.[14-58]

[Footnote 14-57: Col J. F. Ca.s.sidy, Comments on Initial Recommendations of Fahy Committee (ca. 26 May 49) FC file.]

[Footnote 14-58: Min, PPB Mtg, 26 May 49, FC file.]

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.[14-59]

[Footnote 14-59: Memo, Reid for Under SecDef, 23 May 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services; idem for SecDef, 1 Jun 49, sub: Fahy Committee Initial Recommendations--Discussion With Members of the Fahy Committee; both in PPB files. See also Memo, Ohly for Reid, 26 May 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, FC file.]

Before Johnson could act 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. But now it (p. 359) 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 "lack 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."[14-60]

[Footnote 14-60: Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 24 May 49, FC file.]

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 enlistment standards, Kimball broke the solid opposition to 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 Cla.s.sification Test score ninety) could be used without detriment to the Navy.[14-61]

[Footnote 14-61: Memo, Actg SecNav for SecDef, 23 May 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces, FC file.]

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.[14-62] The secretary's acceptance was announced on 7 June and was widely reported in the press.[14-63]

[Footnote 14-62: Draft Memo, Reid for SecNav, 3 Jun 49, and Memo, Reid for SecDef, 1 Jun 49, both in PPB files; Memo, Kenworthy for Fahy, 30 May 49, sub: Replies of Army and Navy to Mr. Johnson's May 11 Memo, FC file.]

[Footnote 14-63: NME, Off of Pub Info, Release 78-49A, 7 Jun 49. See Washington _Post_, June 7, 1949, and New York _Times_, June 8, 1949.]

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 Johnson's directive, and the initial recommendations of the Fahy Committee (p. 360) to pry out of it a new commitment to integrate. In lieu of such a commitment, Acting Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray[14-64] 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 compet.i.tion 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 compet.i.tion 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."[14-65]

[Footnote 14-64: Following the resignation of Secretary 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 newspaper publisher in North Carolina before his appointment as a.s.sistant secretary in 1947.]

[Footnote 14-65: Memo, Actg SA for SecDef, 26 May 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services; see also P&A Summary Sheet, 19 May 49, same sub, FC file.]

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 reb.u.t.tal. 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.[14-66] 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.[14-67]

[Footnote 14-66: Memo, Kenworthy for Fahy, 30 May 49, sub: Replies of Army and Navy to Mr. Johnson's May 11 Memo, FC file.]

[Footnote 14-67: Memo, Reid for SecDef, 1 Jun 49, sub: Army and Navy Replies to Your Memorandum of 6 April on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Army Services; Min, PPB Mtg, 2 Jun 49; both in FC file.]

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 reject the Army's latest response and (p. 361) order the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff to confer informally with the committee in an attempt to produce an acceptable program. 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 enlistment and to discuss further the parity issue.[14-68]

[Footnote 14-68: Min, PPB Mtg, 2 Jun 49; Ltr, Fahy to Johnson, 25 Jul 49, FC file.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PRESS NOTICE. _Rejection of the Army's second proposal as seen by the Afro-American, June 14, 1949._]

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, "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."[14-69]

[Footnote 14-69: Draft Memo, Lanham for SecDef, 2 Jun 49, FC file.]

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,[14-70]

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 cooperation was to be (p. 362) short-lived; it would disappear altogether as the Fahy Committee began to press the Army, while the Secretary of Defense, in reaction, began to draw closer to the Army's position.[14-71]

[Footnote 14-70: Memo, 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 Gen Levin Allen, 6 Jul 49, sub: Army Reply to the Secretary of Defense on Equality of Treatment; Min, PPB Mtg, 18 Aug 49. All in FC file.]

[Footnote 14-71: Interv, author with Kenworthy.]

_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 rea.s.sured Reid and the Personnel Policy Board and would strengthen its hand in dealing with the recalcitrant Army,[14-72] 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.[14-73]

[Footnote 14-72: Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 20 May 49, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]