Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 Part 58

[Footnote 15-55: See Ltrs, Humphrey to Rosenberg, 10 Mar 51; Rosenberg to Humphrey, 26 Mar 51; Javits to SecDef, 10 Mar 51; Marshall to Javits, 30 Mar 51; Memo, Leva for Rosenberg, 23 Mar 51; Ltrs, Rosenberg to Douglas, Humphrey, Benton, Kilgore, Lehman, and Javits, 26 Jun 51; Memo, Rosenberg for SA, 16 May 51, sub: Private Lionel E. Bolin. All in SD 291.2. See also DF, ACS, G-1, to CSA, 6 Apr 51, sub: Summary of Advances in Utilization of Negro Manpower, CS 291.2 Negroes.]

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 pa.s.sage of such legislation for many years, and in March 1951 Clarence Mitch.e.l.l 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.[15-56] 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 efforts to secure fullhearted support of the American Negro for the Government's military and foreign policy program."[15-57]

[Footnote 15-56: Ltr, Mitch.e.l.l to Rosenberg, 26 Mar 51, SD 291.2.]

[Footnote 15-57: Telgs, White to Marshall and SA, 9 Jan 51, copy in SD 291.2.]

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.[15-58] 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.[15-59]

[Footnote 15-58: _Congressional Record_, 81st Cong., 2d sess., vol. 96, p. A888.]

[Footnote 15-59: Ibid., p. 904. For the Army's opposition to these proposals, see Memo ACofS, G-1, for CofS, 12 Apr 50, sub: Department of the Army Policies re Segregation and Utilization of Negro Manpower, G-1 291.2 (5 Apr 50).]

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.[15-60] 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 pa.s.sage should not be endangered by consideration of extraneous issues. He wanted the problem of federal protection considered as a separate piece of legislation.[15-61]

[Footnote 15-60: Memo for Rcd, Maj M. O. Becker, G-1, 13 Mar 51, G-1 291.2.]

[Footnote 15-61: Ltr, SecDef to Havenner, 27 Mar 51, SecDef files.]

But evidently not just yet, for when the NAACP's Mitch.e.l.l, (p. 394) 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.[15-62] The department's reluctance to act in the matter obviously involved more than concern with the fate of universal military training. Summing up department policy on 1 June, the day after the training bill pa.s.sed 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."[15-63]

This limitation was further defined by Rosenberg's colleagues in the Defense Department. On 19 June the a.s.sistant Secretary of Defense for Legal and Legislative Affairs, Daniel K. Edwards, rejected Mitch.e.l.l's request for help in preparing the language of a bill to protect black servicemen. Mitch.e.l.l had explained that discussions with congressional leaders convinced the NAACP that chances for such legislation were favorable, but the Defense Department's a.s.sistant General Counsel declared the department did not ordinarily act "as a drafting service for outside agencies."[15-64] In fact, effective legislation to protect servicemen off military bases was more than a decade away.

[Footnote 15-62: Ltr, Mitch.e.l.l to Rosenberg, 16 Apr 51; Ltr, Rosenberg to Mitch.e.l.l, 9 May 51; both in SD 291.2.]

[Footnote 15-63: Memo, ASD (MP&R) for ASD (Legal and Legis Affairs), 14 Jun 51, SD 291.1; PL 51, 82d Congress.]

[Footnote 15-64: Ltr, Mitch.e.l.l, Dir, Washington Br, NAACP, to Dir of Industrial Relations, DOD, 25 May 51; Ltr, ASD (Legal and Legis Affairs) to Mitch.e.l.l, 19 Jun 51; Memo, a.s.st Gen Counsel, OSD, for ASD (Legal and Legis Affairs), 19 Jun 51. All in SD 291.2.]

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 times of manpower shortages the services suffered a serious imbalance when each failed to get its fair share of recruits from the various so-called mental categories.[15-65]

Her a.s.sistant, Ralph P. Sollat, prepared a program for her incorporating Roy K. Davenport's specific suggestions. The program would allow volunteer enlistments to continue but would require all the services to give a uniform entrance test to both volunteers and draftees. (Actually, rather than develop a completely new entrance test, the other services eventually 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 t.i.tle 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 employment (p. 395) 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 to 18 percent and finally in 1958 to 12 percent.[15-66]

[Footnote 15-65: Ltr, Anna Rosenberg Hoffman to author, 23 Sep 71.]

[Footnote 15-66: BuPers Study, Pers A 1224 (probably Jan 59), GenRecsNav.]

The Navy and the Air Force had always insisted their high minimum entrance requirements were designed to 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."[15-67]

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_)

[Footnote 15-67: Interv, author with Davenport, 17 Oct 71; and Ltr, Anna Rosenberg Hoffman to author, 23 Sep 71.]

Table 3--Percentage of Black Enlisted Men and Women

Service 1 July 1949 1 July 1954 1 July 1956 Army 12.4 13.7 12.8 Navy 4.7 3.6 6.3 Air Force 5.1 8.6 10.4 Marine Corps 2.1 6.5 6.5

_Source_: Memo for Rcd, ASD/M, 12 Sep 56, sub: Integration Percentages, ASD(M) 291.2.

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. a.s.sistant Secretary Earl D. Johnson returned the request "without action," noting that the new qualitative distribution program would produce a "more equitable" solution.[15-68]

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.[15-69]

[Footnote 15-68: G-1 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).]

[Footnote 15-69: Memo, Actg CofS for SA, 31 May 51, sub: Present Overstrength in Segregated Units; G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS, 26 May 51, same sub; Draft Memo, Frank Pace, Jr., for President; Memo, ASA for SA, 1 Jul 51. All in G-1 291.2 (26 May 51).]

Executive Order 9981 pa.s.sed its third anniversary in July 1951 (p. 396) 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 definition 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 (p. 397)

Integration in the Air Force and the Navy

The racial reforms inst.i.tuted 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 battle. 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.[16-1] 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 rea.s.signing those eligible to former all-white units and training schools and dropping the unfit from the service.[16-2] 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."[16-3]

[Footnote 16-1: Memo, ASecAF for Symington, 25 Mar 49, sub: Salient Factors of Air Force Policy Regarding Negro Personnel, SecAF files.]

[Footnote 16-2: Negro strength figures as of 5 April 1949. Ltr, ASecAF to Robert Harper, Chief Clerk, House Armed Services Cmte, 5 Apr 49, SecAF files.]

[Footnote 16-3: Memo, Symington for Forrestal, 6 Jan 49, SecAF files.]

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. Submitted to Forrestal on 6 January 1949, it was (p. 398) 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 rea.s.signment of some 4,000 troops.[16-4] In conversation with the Secretary of Defense, Symington mentioned a deadline of 31 March, but a.s.sistant Secretary Zuckert was later able to a.s.sure Symington that the planners could tolerate a delay in the decision over integration until May.[16-5]

[Footnote 16-4: Memo, Hoyt S. Vandenberg, CofS, USAF, for SecAF, 12 Jan 49, SecAF files.]

[Footnote 16-5: Memo, SecAF for Forrestal, 17 Feb 49; Memo, ASecAF for Symington, 24 Mar 49, sub: Lockbourne AFB; both in SecAF files.]

By then the 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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sistant, 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 pa.s.sed 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 rea.s.sured Osthagen, the announcement of an integration plan would not jeopardize pending Air Force legislation.[16-6]

[Footnote 16-6: Memo for Files, Osthagen, a.s.st to ASecAF, 13 Apr 49, SecAF files.]

Unfortunately, the Air Force's black personnel were not so easily rea.s.sured, and the service had a morale problem on its hands during the spring of 1949. As later 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. Some Negroes in the 332d concluded that the move was not (p. 399) directed at integration but at saving money for the Air Force.[16-7]

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."[16-8]

[Footnote 16-7: Ltr, Joseph H. Evans, a.s.soc Exec Secy, Fahy Cmte, to Fahy Cmte, 23 Jun 49, FC file. See also "U.S. Armed Forces: 1950," _Our World 5_ (June 1950):11-35.]

[Footnote 16-8: Draft Memo, Zuckert for Symington, 15 Feb 49, sub: Air Force Policies on Negro Personnel (not sent), SecAF files.]