Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 Part 83

[Footnote 21-56: Ibid., pp. 92-93.]

_Reaction to a New Commitment_

The Gesell Committee's conclusion that discrimination in the community was tied to military efficiency meshed well with the civil rights philosophy of the New Frontier. Responding to the committee's (p. 546) report, President Kennedy cited "the interests of national defense, national policy and basic considerations of human decency" to justify his 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.[21-57]

The secretary, in turn, personally asked the service secretaries to comment on the recommendations and a.s.signed the Deputy Under Secretary of the Army (Manpower), Alfred B. Fitt, to act as coordinator and draw up the Defense Department's reply.[21-58]

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.[21-59] 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."[21-60] These officials promised that commanders would press for voluntary compliance, but for more aggressive measures they preferred to wait for the pa.s.sage 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.[21-61]

[Footnote 21-57: 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; see Memo, Yarmolinsky for White, 8 Jun 63, White Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]

[Footnote 21-58: Memo, SecDef 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 SecDef, 27 Jun 63; both in ASD (M) 291.2.]

[Footnote 21-59: Memo, Dep Under SA (M) for SecDef (ca. 10 Jul 63), with service comments attached, copy in ASD (M) 291.2.]

[Footnote 21-60: Memo, SecNav for ASD (M), 10 Jul 63, sub; Report of the President's Committee on Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces, SecNav file 5410, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 21-61: Memo, SecAF for ASD (M), 10 Jul 63, sub: Air Force Response to the Gesell Committee Report, SecAF files.]

Despite the opposition to these recommendations, Fitt saw room for compromise 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 in (p. 547) 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 but 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALFRED FITT.]

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 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 pa.s.sage of such a law that could be caused by some "too gung-ho" commander left to impose sanctions on his own.[21-62] 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.

[Footnote 21-62: Interv, author with Gesell, 13 May 72.]

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."[21-63] 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."[21-64]

[Footnote 21-63: Ibid., and with McNamara, 11 May 72.]

[Footnote 21-64: Memo, McNamara for Burke Marshall (ca. 20 Jul 63), Marshall Papers, J. F. Kennedy Library.]

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 some of (p. 548) 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."[21-65] 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.

[Footnote 21-65: Idem for President, 24 Jul 63, copy in CMH.]

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 a.s.sistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower) is hereby a.s.signed 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 military personnel, (c) provide policy guidance and review policies, regulations and manuals of the military departments, and (d) monitor their performance through periodic reports and visits to field installations.

2. In carrying out the functions enumerated above, the a.s.sistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower) is authorized to establish the Office of Deputy a.s.sistant Secretary of Defense (Civil Rights).

B. The Military Departments:

1. The military departments shall, with the approval of the a.s.sistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower), issue 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 inst.i.tute 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 equal 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 discrimination cases arising within the United States.[21-66]

[Footnote 21-66: DOD Dir 5120.36, 26 Jul 63.]

After some thirty months in office, Robert McNamara had made a (p. 549) 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 circ.u.mstances, to use the department's economic powers to force these changes. This directive marked the beginning of McNamara's most active period of partic.i.p.ation 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.[21-67]

[Footnote 21-67: Alfred B. Fitt thus characterized the opposition in his Remarks Before Civilian Aides Conference of the Secretary of Army, 6 Mar 64, DASD (CR) files.]

"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 a.s.sociates.[21-68] 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."

[Footnote 21-68: Ltr to SecDef, 29 Jul 63. This letter and the two following are typical of hundreds received by the secretary and filed in the records of ASD (M).]

Not all the correspondents were racist or hysterical. Some thoughtful 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.[21-69]

[Footnote 21-69: Ltr, 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. See also Ltrs, DASD (CR) to Sen. Frank Moss, 16 Aug 63, and ASD (M) to Congressman George Huddleston, 13 Aug 63; ASD (M), "Straightening Out the Record," 19 Aug 63; Memo, DASD (CR) for General Counsel, 4 Sep 63, sub: Use of the Off-Limits Power. All in DASD (CR) files.]

Some defenders of the directive saw the whole controversy over (p. 550) sanctions as a red herring dragged across the path of a genuine equal treatment and opportunity program.[21-70] During congressional debate on the directive, the use of off-limits 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 const.i.tutional 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."[21-71]

[Footnote 21-70: Ltr, Fitt to author, 22 May 72.]

[Footnote 21-71: _Congressional Record_, 88th Cong., 1st sess., vol. 109, p. 14350.]

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.[21-72]

[Footnote 21-72: Ibid., pp. 13778-87, 14349-56.]

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. Pa.s.sman 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 Yarmolinsky, 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 this change."[21-73] In line with these (p. 551) 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."[21-74]

[Footnote 21-73: Quotes are from ibid., pp. 13778, 13780, 14345-46, 14349, 14351, 14352.]

[Footnote 21-74: Ibid., Senate, 31 Jul 63, pp. 13779, 13783.]

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 const.i.tuents, 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.[21-75] Their campaign came to naught because the new policy had its own supporters in Congress,[21-76] 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.

[Footnote 21-75: Congressional letters critical of the directive can be found in DASD (CR) and SD files, 1963. See, for example, Ltrs, Fulbright to SecDef, 22 Aug 63, R. C. Byrd to SecDef, 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 the const.i.tutionality of the directive and of Vinson's bill took place among department officials during 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; a.s.st Gen Counsel (Manpower) for ASD (M), 4 Sep 63.

All in ASD (M) 291.2.]