Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 Part 32

Knowland, 31 Jul 48; Ltr, SA to Sen. Knowland, 16 May 48; both in CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (10 Aug 48).]

On the recommendation of the civilian aide, the a.s.sistant Secretary of War introduced another racial reform in January 1947 that removed racial designations from overseas travel orders and authorizations issued to dependents and War Department civilian employees.[8-51] The order was strongly opposed by some members of the Army staff and had to be repeated by the Secretary of the Army in 1951.[8-52] Branding racial designations on travel orders a "continuous source of embarra.s.sment" to the Army, Secretary Frank Pace, Jr., sought to include all travel orders in the prohibition, but the Army staff persuaded him it was unwise. While the staff agreed that orders involving travel between reception centers and training organizations need not designate race, it convinced the secretary that to abolish such designations on other orders, including overseas a.s.signment doc.u.ments, would adversely affect strength and accounting procedures as well as overseas replacement systems.[8-53] The modest reform continued in effect until the question of racial designation became a major issue in the 1960's.

[Footnote 8-51: AG Memo for Office of SW et al., 10 Jan 47, sub: Designation of Race on Overseas Travel Orders, AGAO-C 291.2 (6 Jan 47), WDGSP; Memo for Rcd attached to Memo, D/SSP for TAG, 6 Jan 47, same sub, AG 291.2 (6 Jan 47).]

[Footnote 8-52: Memo, SA for CofSA, 2 Apr 52, sub: Racial Designations on Travel Orders, CS 291.2 (2 Apr 51).]

[Footnote 8-53: G-1 Summary Sheet, 26 Apr 52, sub: Racial Designations on Travel Orders; Memo, CofS for SA, 5 May 51, same sub; both in CS 291.2 (2 Apr 51).]

Not all the reforms that followed the Gillem Board's deliberations were so quickly adopted. For in truth the Army was not the monolithic inst.i.tution so often depicted by its critics, and its racial directives usually came out of compromises between the progressive and traditional factions of the staff. The integration of the national cemeteries, an emotion-laden issue in 1947, amply demonstrated that sharp differences of opinion existed within the department. Although long-standing regulations provided for segregation by rank only, local custom, and in one case--the Long Island National Cemetery--a 1935 order by Secretary of War George H. Dern, dictated racial (p. 225) segregation in most of the cemeteries. The Quartermaster General reviewed the practice in 1946 and recommended a new policy specifically opening new sections of all national cemeteries to eligible citizens of all races. He would leave undisturbed segregated grave sites in the older sections of the cemeteries because integration would "const.i.tute a breach of faith with the next of kin of those now interred."[8-54] As might be expected, General Paul supported the quartermaster suggestion, as did the commander of the Army Ground Forces. The Army Air Forces commander, on the other hand, opposed integrating the cemeteries, as did the Chief of Staff, who on 22 February 1947 rejected the proposal. The existing policy was reconfirmed by the Under Secretary of War three days later, and there the matter rested.[8-55]

[Footnote 8-54: Memo, QMG for DCofS, 15 Apr 47, CSUSA, copy in CMH.]

[Footnote 8-55: WDSP Summary Sheet, 22 Jan 47, sub: Staff Study--Segregation of Grave Sites, WDGSP/C3 1894.]

Not for long, for civil rights spokesmen and the black press soon protested. The NAACP confessed itself "astonished" at the Army's decision and demanded that Secretary Patterson change a practice that was both "un-American and un-democratic."[8-56] Marcus Ray predicted that continuing agitation would require further Army action, and he reminded Under Secretary Royall that cemeteries under the jurisdiction of the Navy, Veterans Administration, and Department of the Interior had been integrated with considerable publicity. He urged adoption of the Quartermaster General's recommendation.[8-57] That was enough for Secretary Patterson. On 15 April he directed that the new sections of national cemeteries be integrated.[8-58]

[Footnote 8-56: Telg, Secy Veterans Affairs, NAACP, to SW, attached to Memo, SW for DCofS, 11 Apr 47, copy in CMH.]

[Footnote 8-57: Memo, Civilian Aide for USW, 15 Mar 47, sub: Segregation in Grave Site a.s.signment, copy in CMH.]

[Footnote 8-58: Memo, SW for DCofS, 15 Apr 47, copy in CMH. The secretary's directive was incorporated in the _National Cemetery Regulations_, August 1947, and Army Regulation 290-5, 2 October 1951.]

It was a hollow victory for the reformers because the traditionalists were able to cling to the secretary's proviso that old sections of the cemeteries be left alone, and the Army continued to gather its dead in segregation and in bitter criticism. Five months after the secretary's directive, the American Legion protested to the Secretary of War over segregation at the Fort Snelling National Cemetery, Minnesota, and in August 1950 the Governor's Interracial Commission of the State of Minnesota carried the matter to the President, calling the policy "a flagrant disregard of human dignity."[8-59] The Army continued to justify segregation as a temporary and limited measure involving the old sections, but a decade after the directive the commander of the Atlanta Depot was still referring to segregation in some cemeteries.[8-60] The controversial practice would drag on into the next decade before the Department of Defense finally ruled that there would be no lines drawn by rank or race in national cemeteries.

[Footnote 8-59: Ltr, Royall to Rep. Edward J. Devitt of Minnesota, 4 Sep 47; Ltr, Clifford Rucker to the President, 9 Aug 50; both in SW 291.2.]

[Footnote 8-60: Ltr, CG, Atlanta Depot, to DQMG, 19 Mar 56, MGME-P. See also Memo, ASA (M&RF) for CofS, 27 Sep 52, sub: Segregation of National Cemeteries; DF, QMF to G-4, 6 Oct 52, same sub; both in CS 687 (27 Sep 52).]

An attempt to educate the rank and file in the Army's racial (p. 226) policy met some opposition in the Army staff. At General Paul's request, the Information and Education Division prepared a pamphlet intended to improve race relations through troop indoctrination.[8-61]

_Army Talk 170_, published on 1 April 1947, was, like its World War II predecessors, _Command of Negro Troops_ and _The Negro Soldier_, progressive for the times. While it stressed the reforms projected in the Army's policy, including eventual integration, it also clearly defended the Army's continued insistence on segregation on the grounds that segregation promoted interracial harmony. The official position of the service was baldly stated. "The Army is not an instrument of social reform. Its interest in matters of race is confined to considerations of its own effectiveness."

[Footnote 8-61: Memo, D/P&A for CofS, 26 Feb 47, sub: Army Talks on "Utilization of Negro Manpower,"

WDGPA 291.2 (7 Jan 47).]

Even before publication the pamphlet provoked considerable discussion and soul-searching in the Army staff. The Deputy Chief of Staff, Lt.

Gen. Thomas T. Handy, questioned some of the Information and Education Division's claims for black combatants. In the end the matter had to be taken to General Eisenhower for resolution. He ordered publication, reminding local commanders that if necessary they should add further instructions of their own, "in keeping with the local situation" to insure acceptance of the Army's policy. The pamphlet was not to be considered an end in itself, he added, but only one element in a "progressive process toward maximum utilization of manpower in the Army."[8-62]

[Footnote 8-62: WD Cir 76, 22 Mar 47; see also Ltrs, Col David Lane (author of _Army Talk 170_) to Martin Blumenson, 29 Dec 66, and to author, 15 Mar 71, CMH files.]

_Segregation in Theory and Practice_

Efforts to carry out the policy set forth in Circular 124 reached a high-water mark in mid-1948. By then black troops, for so long limited to a few job categories, could be found in a majority of military occupational fields. The officer corps was open to all without the restrictions of a racial quota, and while a quota for enlisted men still existed all racial distinctions in standards of enlistment were gone. The Army was replacing white officers in black units with Negroes as fast as qualified black replacements became available. And more were qualifying every day. By 30 June 1948 the Army had almost 1,000 black commissioned officers, 5 warrant officers, and 67 nurses serving with over 65,000 enlisted men and women.[8-63]

[Footnote 8-63: STM-30, Strength of the Army, 1 Jul 48. For an optimistic report on the execution of Circular 124, see _Annual Report of the Secretary of the Army, 1948_ (Was.h.i.+ngton: Government Printing Office, 1949), pp. 7-8, 83, 94.]

But here, in the eyes of the Army's critics, was the rub: after three years of racial reform segregation not only remained but had been perfected. No longer would the Army be plagued with the vast all-black divisions that had segregated thousands of Negroes in an admittedly inefficient and often embarra.s.sing manner. Instead, Negroes would be segregated in more easily managed hundreds. By limiting (p. 227) integration to the battalion level (the lowest self-sustaining unit in the Army system), the Army could guarantee the separation of the races in eating, sleeping, and general social matters and still hope to escape some of the obvious discrimination of separate units by making the black battalions organic elements of larger white units. The Army's scheme did not work. Schooling and specialty occupations aside, segregation quite obviously remained the essential fact of military life and social intercourse for the majority of black soldiers, and all the evidence of reasonable and genuine reform that came about under the Gillem Board policy went aglimmering. The Army was in for some rough years with its critics.

But why were the Army's senior officers, experienced leaders at the pinnacle of their careers and dedicated to the well-being of the inst.i.tution they served, so reluctant to part with segregation? Why did they cling to an inst.i.tution abandoned by the Navy and the Air Force,[8-64] the target of the civil rights movement and its allies in Congress, and by any reasonable judgment so costly in terms of efficient organization? The answers lie in the reasoned defense of their position developed by these men during the long controversy over the use of black troops and so often presented in public statements and doc.u.ments.[8-65] Arguments for continued segregation fell into four general categories.

[Footnote 8-64: The Air Force became a separate service on 18 September 1947.]

[Footnote 8-65: Unless otherwise noted, the following paragraphs are based on Nichols' interviews in 1953 with Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, and Lee and with Lt. Col. Steve Davis (a black officer a.s.signed to the P&A Division during the Gillem Board period); author's interview with General Wade H. Haislip, 18 Mar 71, and with General J. Lawton Collins, 27 Apr 71; all in CMH files; and U.S. Congress, Senate, Hearings Before the U.S. Senate Committee on _Armed Services, Universal Military Training_, 80th Cong., 2d sess., 1948, pp. 995-96. See also Morris Janowitz, _The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait_ (New York: Free Press, 1960), pp. 87ff.]

First, segregation was necessary to preserve the internal stability of the Army. Prejudice was a condition of American society, General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower told a Senate committee in 1948, and the Army "is merely one of the mirrors that holds up to our faces the United States of America." Since society separated the races, it followed that if the Army allowed black and white soldiers to live and socialize together it ran the very real risk of riots and racial disturbances which could disrupt its vital functions. Remembering the contribution of black platoons to the war in Europe, General Eisenhower, for his part, was willing to accept the risk and integrate the races by platoons, believing that the social problems "can be handled," particularly on the large posts. Nevertheless he made no move toward integrating by platoons while he was Chief of Staff. Later he explained that

the possibility of applying this lesson [World War II integration of Negro platoons] to the peacetime Army came up again and again.

Objection involved primarily the social side of the soldier's life. It was argued that through integration we would get into all kinds of difficulty in staging soldiers' dances and other social events. At that time we were primarily occupied in responding to America's determination "to get the soldiers home"--so, as I recall, little progress toward integration was made during that period.[8-66]

[Footnote 8-66: Ltr, DDE to Gen Bruce Clarke (commander of the 2d Constabulary Brigade when it was integrated in 1950), 29 May 67, copy in CMH.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: INSPECTION BY THE CHIEF OF STAFF. _General Dwight D.

Eisenhower talks with a soldier of the 25th Combat Team Motor Pool during a tour of Fort Benning, Georgia, 1947._]

"Liquor and women," Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee p.r.o.nounced, were the (p. 228) major ingredients of racial turmoil in the Army. Although General Lee had been a prime mover in the wartime integration of combat platoons, he wanted the Army to avoid social integration because of the disturbances he believed would attend it. As General Omar N.

Bradley saw it, the Army could integrate its training programs but not the soldier's social life. Hope of progress would be destroyed if integration was pushed too fast. Bradley summed up his postwar att.i.tude very simply: "I said let's go easy--as fast as we can."

Second, segregation was an efficient way to isolate the poorly educated and undertrained black soldier, especially one with a combat occupational specialty. To integrate Negroes into white combat units, already dangerously understrength, would threaten the Army's fighting ability. When he was Chief of Staff, Eisenhower thought many of the problems a.s.sociated with black soldiers, problems of morale, health, and discipline, were problems of education, and that the Negro was capable of change. "I believe," he said, "that a Negro can improve his standing and his social standing and his respect for certain of the standards that we observe, just as well as we can." Lt. Gen. Wade H.

Haislip, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Administration, concluded that the Army's racial mission was education. All that Circular 124 meant, he explained, "was that we had to begin educating the Negro soldiers so they could be mixed sometime in the future." Bradley observed in agreement that "as you begin to get better educated Negroes in the service," there is "more reason to integrate." The Army was pledged to accept Negroes and to give them a wide choice of a.s.signment, but until their education and training improved they had to be isolated.

Third, segregation was the only way to provide equal treatment and opportunity for black troops. Defending this paternalistic argument, Eisenhower told the Senate:

In general, the Negro is less well educated ... and if you make a complete amalgamation, what you are going to have is in every company the Negro is going to be relegated to the minor jobs, and he is never going to get his promotion to such grades as technical sergeant, master sergeant, and so on, because the compet.i.tion is too tough. If, on the other hand, he is in (p. 229) smaller units of his own, he can go up to that rate, and I believe he is ent.i.tled to the chance to show his own wares.

Fourth, segregation was necessary because segments of American society with powerful representatives in Congress were violently opposed to mixing the races. Bradley explained that integration was part of social evolution, and he was afraid that the Army might move too fast for certain sections of the country. "I thought in 1948 that they were ready in the North," he added, "but not in the South." The south "learned over the years that mixing the races was a vast problem."

Bradley continued, "so any change in the Army would be a big step in the South." General Haislip reasoned, you "just can't do it all of a sudden." As for the influence of those opposed to maintaining the Army's social _status quo_, Haislip, who was the Vice Chief of Staff during part of the Gillem Board period, recalled that "everybody was floundering around, trying to find the right thing to do. I didn't lose any sleep over it [charges of discrimination]." General Eisenhower, as he did so often during his career, accurately distilled the thinking of his a.s.sociates:

I believe that the human race may finally grow up to the point where it [race relations] will not be a problem. It [the race problem] will disappear through education, through mutual respect, and so on. But I do believe that if we attempt merely by pa.s.sing a lot of laws to force someone to like someone else, we are just going to get into trouble. On the other hand, I do not by any means hold out for this extreme segregation as I said when I first joined the Army 38 years ago.

These arguments might be specious, as a White House committee would later demonstrate, but they were not necessarily guileful, for they were the heartfelt opinions of many of the Army's leaders, opinions shared by officials of the other services. These men were probably blind to the racism implicit in their policies, a racism nurtured by military tradition. Education and environment had fostered in these career officers a reverence for tradition. Why should the Army, these traditionalists might ask, abandon its black units, some with histories stretching back almost a century? Why should the ordered social life of the Army post, for so long a mirror of the segregated society of most civilian communities, be so uncomfortably changed? The fact that integration had never really been tried before made it fraught with peril, and all the forces of military tradition conspired to support the old ways.

What had gone unnoticed by Army planners was the subtle change in the att.i.tude of the white enlisted man toward integration. Opinion surveys were rare in an inst.i.tution dedicated to the concept of military discipline, but nevertheless in the five years following the war several surveys were made of the racial views of white troops (the views of black soldiers were ignored, probably on the a.s.sumption that all Negroes favored integration). In 1946, just as the Gillem Board policy was being enunciated, the Army staff found enlisted men in substantial agreement on segregation. Although most of those surveyed supported the expanded use of Negroes in the Army, an overwhelming majority voted for the principle of having racially separate working and living arrangements. Yet the pollsters found much less opposition to integration when they put their questions on a personal basis--"How do _you_ feel about...?" Only southerners as a group registered a clear majority for segregated working conditions. The survey also (p. 230) revealed another encouraging portent: most of the opposition to integration existed among older and less educated men.[8-67]

[Footnote 8-67: The 1946 survey is contained in CINFO, "Supplementary Rpt on Att.i.tudes of Whites Toward Serving With Negro EM," Incl to Memo, Col Charles S. Johnson, Exec Off, CofS, for DCofS, 24 May 49, sub: Segregation in the Army, CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (24 May 48).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL DAVIS.]

Three years later the Secretary of Defense sponsored another survey of enlisted opinion on segregation. This time less than a third of those questioned were opposed to integrated working conditions and some 40 percent were not "definitely opposed" to complete integration of both working and living arrangements. Again men from all areas tended to endorse integration as their educational level rose; opposition, on the other hand, centered in 1949 among the chronic complainers and those who had never worked with Negroes.[8-68]

[Footnote 8-68: Armed Forces I&E Div, OSD, Rpt No.

101, "Morale Att.i.tudes of Enlisted Men, May-June 1949," pt. II, Att.i.tude Toward Integration of Negro Soldiers in the Army, copy in CMH.]

In discussing prejudice and discrimination it is necessary to compare the Army with the rest of American society. Examining the question of race relations in the Army runs the risk of distorting the importance given the subject by the nation as a whole in the postwar period.

While resistance to segregation was undoubtedly growing in the black community and among an increasing number of progressives in the white community, there was as yet no widespread awareness of the problem and certainly no concerted public effort to end it. This lack of perception might be particularly justified in the case of Army officers, for few of them had any experience with black soldiers and most undoubtedly were not given to wide reading and reflecting on the subject of race relations. Moreover, the realities of military life tended to insulate Army officers from the main currents of American society. Frequently transferred and therefore without roots in the civilian community, isolated for years at a time in overseas a.s.signments, their social life often centered in the military garrison, officers might well have been less aware of racial discrimination.

Perhaps because of the insulation imposed on officers by their duties, the Army's leaders were achieving reforms far beyond those accepted elsewhere in American society. Few national organizations and industries could match the Army in 1948 for the number of Negroes employed, the breadth of responsibility given them, and the variety of their training and occupations. Looked at in this light, the (p. 231) Army of 1948 and the men who led it could with considerable justification be cla.s.sed as a progressive force in the fight for racial justice.