Chapter VI

, in CMH.]

[Footnote 12-21: Millis, _Forrestal Diaries_, pp. 301, 497.]

Nowhere was Forrestal's philosophy of government more evident than in his approach to the problem of integration. His office would be concerned with equal opportunity, he promised Walter White soon after his elevation to the new post, but "the job of Secretary of Defense," he warned, "is one which will have to develop in an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary manner." Further dashing hopes of sudden reform, Forrestal added that specific racial problems, as distinct from general policy matters, would remain the province of the individual services.[12-22] He retained this attitude throughout his tenure. He considered the President's instructions to end remaining instances of discrimination in the services "in accord with my own conception of my responsibilities under unification," and he was in wholehearted agreement with a presidential wish that the National Military Establishment work out the answer to its racial problems through administrative action. He wanted to see a "more nearly uniform approach to interracial problems by the three Services," but experience had demonstrated, he believed, that racial problems could not be solved simply by publishing an executive order or passing a law. Racial progress would come from education. Such had been his observation in the wartime Navy, and he was ready to promise that "even greater progress will be made in the future." But, he added, "progress must be made administratively and should not be put into effect by fiat."[12-23]

[Footnote 12-22: Ltr, Forrestal to White, 21 Oct 47, Day file, Forrestal Papers, Princeton University Library.]

[Footnote 12-23: Remarks by James Forrestal at Dinner Meeting of the National Urban League, 12 Feb 48, copy in Misc file, Forrestal Papers; see also Ltr, Forrestal to John N. Brown, 27 Oct 47, Day file, ibid.]

Executive fiat was just what some of Forrestal's advisers wanted. For example, his executive assistant, John H. Ohly, his civilian aide, James C. Evans,[12-24] and Truman Gibson urged the secretary to consider establishing an interservice committee along the lines of the old McCloy committee to prepare a uniform racial policy that he could apply to all the services. They wanted the committee to examine past and current practices as well as the recent reports of the President's Advisory Commission on Universal Training and the Committee on Civil Rights and to make specific recommendations for carrying out and policing department policy. Truman Gibson went to the heart of the matter: the formulation of such an interservice committee would signal to the black community better than anything else the defense establishment's determination to change the racial situation. More and more, he warned, the discrepancies among the services' racial practices were attracting public attention. Most important to the administration was the fact that these discrepancies were strengthening opposition to universal military training and the draft.[12-25]

[Footnote 12-24: In addition to his duties as Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army, Evans was made aide to the Secretary of Defense on 29 October 1947. (See Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 29 Oct 47, D70-1-5, files of Historian, OSD.) Evans was subsequently appointed "civilian assistant" to the Secretary of Defense by Secretary Louis Johnson on 28 Apr 49. (See NME Press Release, 17-49-A.)]

[Footnote 12-25: Ltr, Gibson to Ohly, 25 Nov 47, D54-1-3, Sec Def files.]

[Illustration: A. PHILIP RANDOLPH. (_Detail from painting by Betsy G. Reyneau._)]

Gibson was no doubt referring to A. Philip Randolph, president (p. 300) of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and organizer of the 1940 March on Washington Movement, who had spoken out against the pending legislation. Randolph was particularly concerned that the bill did not prohibit segregation, and he quoted a member of the Advisory Commission on Universal Training who admitted that the bill ignored the racial issue because "the South might oppose UMT if Negroes were included." Drafting eighteen-year olds into a segregated Army was a threat to black progress, Randolph charged, because enforced segregation made it difficult to break down other forms of discrimination. Convinced that the Pentagon was trying to bypass the segregation issue, Randolph and Grant Reynolds, a black clergyman and New York politician, formed a Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training. They planned to submit a proposal to the President and Congress for drafting a nondiscrimination measure for the armed forces, and they were prepared to back up this demand with a march on Washington--no empty gesture in an election year. Randolph had impressive backing from black leaders, among them Dr. Channing H. Tobias of the Civil Rights Committee, George S. Schuyler, columnist of the Pittsburgh _Courier_, L. D. Reddick, curator of the Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library, and Joe Louis.[12-26]

[Footnote 12-26: New York Times, November 23, 1947; _Herald Tribune_, November 23, 1947. See also L. D. Reddick, "The Negro Policy of the American Army Since World War II," _Journal of Negro History_ 38 (April 1953):194-215.]

Black spokesmen were particularly incensed by the attitude of the Secretary of the Army and his staff. Walter White pointed out that these officials continued to justify segregated units on the grounds that segregation was--he quoted them--"in the interest of national defense." White went to special pains to refute the Army's contention that segregation was necessary because the Army had to conform to local laws and customs. "How," he asked Secretary Forrestal,

can the imposition of segregation upon northern states having clear-cut laws and policies in opposition to such practices be justified by the Army?...

In view of President Truman's recent report to the Congress and in view of the report of his Committee on Civil Rights condemning segregation in the Armed Forces, I am at a loss to understand the reluctance on the part of the Department of Defense to immediately eliminate all vestiges of discrimination and (p. 301) segregation in the Armed Forces of this country. As the foremost defender of democratic principles in international councils, the United States can ill afford to any longer discriminate against its Negro citizens in its Armed Forces solely because they were fortunate or unfortunate enough to be born Negroes.[12-27]

[Footnote 12-27: Ltr, White to Forrestal, 17 Feb 48, D54-1-3, SecDef files.]

Forrestal stubbornly resisted the pleas of his advisers and black leaders that he assume a more active role. In the first place he had real doubts concerning his authority to do so. Forrestal was also aware of the consequences an integration campaign would have on Capitol Hill, where he was in the midst of delicate negotiations on defense measures. But most of all the role of crusader did not fit him. "I have gone somewhat slowly," Forrestal had written in late October 1947, "because I believe in the theory of having things to talk about as having been done rather than having to predict them, and ... morale and confidence are easy to destroy but not easy to rebuild. In other words, I want to be sure that any changes we make are changes that accomplish something and not merely for the sake of change."[12-28]

[Footnote 12-28: Ltr, Forrestal to Rear Adm W. B. Young, 23 Oct 47, quoted in Millis, _Forrestal Diaries_, p. 334.]

To Forrestal equal opportunity was not a pious platitude, but a practical means of solving the military's racial problems. Equal opportunity was the tactic he had used in the Navy where he had encouraged specialized training for all qualified Negroes. He understood that on shipboard machinists ate and bunked with machinists, firemen with firemen. Inaugurated in the fleet, the practice naturally spread to the shore establishment, and equal opportunity led inevitably to the integration of the general service. Given the opportunity to qualify for all specialties, Negroes--albeit their number was limited to the small group in the general service--quickly gained equal treatment in off-the-job activities. Forrestal intended to apply the same tactic to achieve the same results in the other services.[12-29]

[Footnote 12-29: Interv, Blumenson with Marx Leva, Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (1947-49) and later Assistant Secretary of Defense (Legal and Legislative Affairs), 4 May 64, CMH files.]

As in the past, he turned first to Lester Granger, his old friend from the National Urban League. Acting on the recommendation of his special assistant, Marx Leva, Forrestal invited Granger to the Pentagon to discuss the department's racial problems with a view to holding a general conference and symposium on the subject. As usual, Granger was full of ideas, and he and the secretary agreed that Forrestal should create a "critics group," which would discuss "Army and general defense policies in the use of Negro personnel."[12-30] Granger suggested a roster of black and white experts, influential in the black community and representing most shades of opinion, but he would exclude those apt to make political capital out of the issues.

[Footnote 12-30: Handwritten Memo, Leva for Forrestal, attached to Ltr, White to Forrestal, 17 Feb 48; Ltr, Leva to Granger, 19 Feb 48; Ltr, Granger to Forrestal, 2 Mar 48. All in D54-1-3, SecDef files. The quotation is from the 2 March letter.]

The Leva-Granger conference idea fitted neatly into Forrestal's thinking. It offered the possibility of introducing to the services in a systematic and documented way the complaints of responsible black leaders while instructing those leaders in the manpower problems confronting the postwar armed forces. He hoped the conference (p. 302) would modify traditionalist attitudes toward integration while curbing mounting unrest in the black community. Granger and Forrestal agreed that the conference should be held soon. Although Granger wanted some "good solid white representation" in the group, Forrestal decided instead to invite fifteen black leaders to meet on 26 April in the Pentagon; he alerted the service secretaries, asking them to attend or to designate an assistant to represent them in each case.[12-31]

[Footnote 12-31: Memo, Marx Leva for SA et al., 13 Apr 48; idem for Forrestal, 24 Apr 48; ltr, SecDef to All Invited, 10 Apr 48. All in D54-1-3, SecDef files. Those invited were Truman Gibson; Dr. Channing Tobias; Dr. Sadie T. M. Alexander; Mary McLeod Bethune; Dr. John W. Davis of West Virginia State College; Dr. Benjamin E. Mays of Morehouse College; Dr. Mordecai Johnson of Howard University; P. B. Young, Jr., of the Norfolk _Journal and Guide_; Willard Townsend of the United Transport Service Employees; Rev. John H. Johnson of New York; Walter White; Hobson E. Reynolds of the International Order of Elks; Bishop J. W. Gregg of Kansas City; Loren Miller of Los Angeles; and Charles Houston of Washington, D.C. Unable to attend, White sent his assistant Roy Wilkins, Townsend sent George L. P. Weaver, and Mrs. Bethune was replaced by Ira F. Lewis of the Pittsburgh _Courier_.]

Announcement of the conference was upstaged in the press by the

## activities of some civil rights militants, including those whom

Granger sought to exclude from the Forrestal conference because he thought they would make a political issue of the war against segregation. Forrestal first learned of the militants' plans from members of the National Negro Publishers Association, a group of publishers and editors of important black journals who were about to tour European installations as guests of the Army.[12-32] At Granger's suggestion Forrestal had met with the publishers and editors to explain the causes for the delay in desegregating the services. Instead, he found himself listening to an impassioned demand for immediate change. Ira F. Lewis, president of the Pittsburgh _Courier_ and spokesman for the group, told the secretary that the black community did not expect the services to be a laboratory or clearinghouse for processing the social ills of the nation, but it wanted to warn the man responsible for military preparedness that the United States could not afford another war with one-tenth of its population lacking the spirit to fight. The problem of segregation could best be solved by the policymakers. "The colored people of the country have a high regard for you, Mr. Secretary, as a square shooter," Lewis concluded. And from Forrestal they expected

## action.[12-33]

[Footnote 12-32: Representing eight papers, a cross section of the influential black press, the journalists included Ira F. Lewis and William G. Nunn, Pittsburgh _Courier_; Cliff W. Mackay, _Afro-American_; Louis Martin and Charles Browning, Chicago _Defender_; Thomas W. Young and Louis R. Lautier, Norfolk _Journal and Guide_; Carter Wesley, Houston _Defender_; Frank L. Stanley, Louisville _Defender_; Dowdal H. Davis, Kansas City _Call_; Dan Burley, _Amsterdam News_. See Evans, list of Publishers and Editors of Negro Newspapers, Pentagon, 18 Mar 48, copy in CMH.]

[Footnote 12-33: Sentiments of the meeting were summarized in Ltr, Ira F. Lewis to Forrestal, 24 Mar 48; see also Ltr, Granger to Forrestal, 2 Mar 48; both in D54-1-4, SecDef files.]

While black newspapermen were pressing the executive branch, Randolph and his Committee Against Jim Crow were demanding congressional

## action. Randolph concentrated on one explosive issue, the Army's

procurement of troops. The first War Department plans for postwar manpower procurement were predicated on some form of universal military training, a new concept for the United States. The plans immediately came under fire from Negroes because the Army, citing the Gillem Board Report as its authority, had specified that black recruits be trained in segregated units. The Army had also specified that the black units form parts of larger, racially mixed units and would be trained in racially mixed camps.[12-34] The President's (p. 303) Advisory Commission on Universal Training (the Compton Commission), appointed to study the Army's program, strongly objected to the segregation provisions, but to no avail.[12-35] As if to signal its intentions the Army trained an experimental universal military training unit in 1947 at Fort Knox that carefully excluded black volunteers.

[Footnote 12-34: WD Ltr, AGAO-S 353 (28 May 47), WDGOT-M, 11 Jun 47.]

[Footnote 12-35: _A Program for National Security: Report of the President's Advisory Commission on Universal Training, 29 May 1947_ (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1947), p. 42.]

The showdown between civil rights organizations and the administration over universal military training never materialized. Faced with chronic opposition to the program and the exigencies of the cold war, the administration quietly shelved universal training and concentrated instead on the reestablishment of the selective service system. When black attention naturally shifted to the new draft legislation, Randolph was able to capitalize on the determination of many leaders in the civil rights movement to defeat any draft law that countenanced the Army's racial policy. Appearing at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings on the draft bill, Randolph raised the specter of civil disobedience, pledging

to openly counsel, aid, and abet youth, both white and Negro, to quarantine any Jim Crow conscription system, whether it bear the label of universal military training or selective service....

From coast to coast in my travels I shall call upon all Negro veterans to join this civil disobedience movement and to recruit their younger brothers in an organized refusal to register and be drafted....

I shall appeal to the thousands of white youths ... to demonstrate their solidarity with Negro youth by ignoring the entire registration and induction machinery....

I shall appeal to the Negro parents to lend their moral support to their sons, to stand behind them as they march with heads held high to Federal prisons as a telling demonstration to the world that Negroes have reached the limit of human endurance, that, in the words of the spiritual, we will be buried in our graves before we will be slaves.[12-36]

[Footnote 12-36: Senate, Hearings Before the Committee on Armed Services, _Universal Military Training_, 80th Cong., 2d sess., 1948, p. 688.]

Randolph argued that hard-won gains in education, job opportunity, and housing would be nullified by federal legislation supporting segregation. How could a Fair Employment Practices Commission, he asked, dare criticize discrimination in industry if the government itself was discriminating against Negroes in the services? "Negroes are just sick and tired of being pushed around," he concluded, "and we just do not propose to take it, and we do not care what happens."[12-37]

[Footnote 12-37: Ibid., p. 689.]

When Senator Wayne Morse warned Randolph that such statements in times of national emergency would leave him open to charges of treason, Randolph replied that by fighting for their rights Negroes were serving the cause of American democracy. Borrowing from the rhetoric of the cold war, he predicted that such was the effect of segregation on the international fight for men's minds that America could never stop communism as long as it was burdened with Jim Crowism. Randolph threw down the gauntlet. "We have to face this thing sooner or (p. 304) later, and we might just as well face it now."[12-38] It was up to the administration and Congress to decide whether his challenge was the beginning of a mass movement or a weightless threat by an extremist group.

[Footnote 12-38: Ibid., pp. 691-94. The quotation is from page 694.]

The immediate reaction of various spokesmen for the black community supported both possibilities. Also testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Truman Gibson, who was a member of the Compton Commission that had objected to segregation, expressed "shock and dismay" at Randolph's pledge and predicted that Negroes would continue to participate in the country's defense effort.[12-39] For his pains Gibson was branded a "rubber stamp Uncle Tom" by Congressman Adam Clayton Powell. The black press, for the most part, applauded Randolph's analysis of the mood of Negroes, but shied away from the threat of civil disobedience. The NAACP and most other civil rights organizations took the same stand, condemning segregation but disavowing civil disobedience.[12-40]

[Footnote 12-39: Ibid., p. 645.]

[Footnote 12-40: The Philadelphia _Inquirer_, April 11, 1948; PM, April 11, 1948. See also McCloy and Ruetten, _Quest and Response_, pp. 107-08; "Crisis in the Making: U.S. Negroes Tussle With the Issue," _Newsweek_, June 7, 1948, pp. 28-29; L. Bennett, Jr., _Confrontation Black and White_ (Chicago: Johnson Press, 1965), pp. 192-94; Grant Reynolds, "A Triumph for Civil Disturbance," _Nation_ 167 (August 28, 1948):228-29.]

Although the administration could take comfort in the relatively mild reaction from conservative blacks, an important element of the black community supported Randolph's stand. A poll of young educated Negroes conducted by the NAACP revealed that 71 percent of those of draft age would support the civil disobedience campaign. So impressive was Randolph's support--the New York _Times_ called it a blunt warning from the black public--that one news journal saw in the campaign the specter of a major national crisis.[12-41] On the other hand, the Washington _Post_ cautioned its readers not to exaggerate the significance of the protest. Randolph's words, the _Post_ declared, were intended "more as moral pressure" for nondiscrimination clauses in pending draft and universal military training legislation than as a serious threat.[12-42]

[Footnote 12-41: New York _Times_, April 1, 1948.]

[Footnote 12-42: Washington _Post_, April 2, 1948.]

Whatever its ultimate influence on national policy, the Randolph civil disobedience pledge had no visible effect on the position of the President or Congress. With a draft bill and a national political convention pending, the President was not about to change his hands-off policy toward the segregation issue in the services. In fact he showed some heat at what he saw as a threat by extremists to exploit an issue he claimed he was doing his best to resolve.[12-43] As for members of Congress, most of those who joined in the debate on the draft bill simply ignored the threatened boycott.

[Footnote 12-43: McCoy and Ruetten, _Quest and Response_, p. 107.]

In contrast to the militant Randolph, the Negroes who gathered at Secretary Forrestal's invitation for the National Defense Conference on 26 April appeared to be a rather sedate group. But academic honors, business success, and gray hairs were misleading. These eminent educators, clergymen, and civil rights leaders proved just as (p. 305) determined as Randolph and his associates to be rid of segregation and, considering their position in the community, were more likely to influence the administration. That they were their own men quickly became apparent in the stormy course of the Pentagon meeting. They subjected a score of defense officials[12-44] to searching questions, submitted themselves to cross-examination by the press, and agreed to prepare a report for the Secretary of Defense.

[Footnote 12-44: Department of National Defense, "National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs," 26 Apr 48. This document includes the testimony and transcript of the news conference that followed. Officials appearing before the committee included James Forrestal, Secretary of Defense; Robert P. Patterson, former Secretary of War; Marx Leva, Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense; James Evans, Adviser to the Secretary of Defense; Kenneth C. Royall, Secretary of the Army; John N. Brown, Assistant Secretary of the Navy; W. Stuart Symington, Secretary of the Air Force; and personnel officials and consultants from each service.]

While the group refrained from endorsing Randolph's position, it also refrained from criticizing him and strongly supported his thesis that segregation in itself was discrimination. Nor were its views soft-pedaled in the press release issued after the conference. The Secretary of Defense was forced to announce that the black leaders declined to serve as advisers to the National Military Establishment as long as the services continued to practice segregation. The group unanimously recommended that the armed services eliminate segregation and challenged the Army's interpretation of its own policy, insisting that the Army could abolish segregation even within the framework of the Gillem Board recommendations. The members planned no future meetings but adjourned to prepare their report.[12-45]

[Footnote 12-45: NME Press Releases, 26 Apr and 8 Sep 48.]

This adamant stand should not have surprised the Secretary of Defense. Forrestal could appreciate more than most the pressures operating on the group. In the aftermath of the report of the President's Committee on Civil Rights and in the heightened atmosphere caused by the rhetoric of the Randolph campaign, these men were also caught up in the militants' cause. If they were reluctant to attack the services too severely lest they lose their chance to influence the course of racial events in the department, they were equally reluctant to accept the pace of reform dictated by the traditionalists. In the end they chose to side with their more radical colleagues. Thus despite Lester Granger's attempt to soften the blow, the conference designed to bring the opponents together ended with yet another condemnation of Forrestal's gradualism.

Forrestal himself agreed with the goals of the conferees, he told Granger, but at the same time he refused to abandon his approach, insisting that he could not force people into cooperation and mutual respect by issuing a directive. Instead he arranged for Granger to meet with Army leaders to spread the gospel of equal opportunity and ordered a report prepared showing precisely what the Navy did during the late months of the war and "how much of it has stuck--on the question of non-segregation both in messing and barracks." The report, written by Lt. Dennis D. Nelson, was sent to Secretary of the Army Royall along with sixteen photographs picturing blacks and whites (p. 306) being trained together and working side by side.[12-46]

[Footnote 12-46: Memo, Forrestal for Marx Leva, 30 Apr 48; Ltr, Nelson to Leva, 24 May 48; Memo, Leva for SA, 25 May 48. All in D54-1-3, SecDef files.]

[Illustration: NATIONAL DEFENSE CONFERENCE ON NEGRO AFFAIRS. _Conferees prepare to meet with the press, 26 April 1948._]

Given the vast size of the Army, it was perfectly feasible to open all training to qualified Negroes and yet continue for years racial practices that had so quickly proved impossible in the Navy's smaller general service. Of course, even in the Army the number of segregated jobs that could be created was limited, and in time Forrestal's tactics might, it could be argued, have succeeded despite the Army's size and the intractability of its leaders. Time, however, was precisely what Forrestal lacked, given the increasing political strength of the civil rights movement.

Sparked by Randolph's stand before the congressional committee, some members of the black community geared up for greater protests. Worse still for an administration facing a critical election, the protest was finding some support in the camps of the President's rivals. Early in May, for example, a group of prominent civil rights activists formed the Commission of Inquiry with the expressed purpose of examining the treatment of black servicemen during World War II. Organized by Randolph and Reynolds, the commission boasted Arthur Garfield Hayes, noted civil libertarian and lawyer, as its counsel. The commission planned to interrogate witnesses and, on the basis of the testimony gathered, issue a report to Congress and the public that would include recommendations on conscription legislation. Various Defense Department officials were invited to testify but only James C. Evans, who acted as department spokesman, accepted. During the (p. 307) inquiry, which Evans estimated was attended by 180 persons, little attention was given to Randolph's civil disobedience pledge, but Evans himself came in for considerable ridicule, and there were headlines aplenty in the black press.[12-47]

[Footnote 12-47: Ltr, Grant Reynolds and Randolph to Evans, 3 May 48; Memo, Evans for SecDef, 13 May 48, sub: Commission of Inquiry; both in SecDef files. See also A. Philip Randolph, Statement Before Commission of Inquiry, 8 May 48, copy in USAF Special Files 35, 1948, SecAF files.]

These attacks were being carried out in an atmosphere of heightened political interest in the civil rights of black servicemen. Henry A. Wallace, the Progressive Party's presidential candidate, had for some time been telling his black audiences that the administration was insincere because if it wanted to end segregation it could simply force the resignation of the Secretary of the Army.[12-48] Henry Cabot Lodge, the Republican senator from Massachusetts, called on Forrestal to make "a real attempt, well thought out and well organized," to integrate a sizable part of the armed forces with soldiers volunteering for such arrangements. Quoting from General Eisenhower's testimony before the Armed Services Committee, he reminded Forrestal that segregation was not only an undeserved and unjustified humiliation to the Negro, but a potential danger to the national defense effort. In the face of a manpower shortage, it was inexcusable to view segregation simply as a political question, "of concern to a few individuals and to a few men in public life and to be dealt with as adroitly as possible, always with an eye to the largest number of votes."[12-49]

[Footnote 12-48: New York _Times_, February 16, 1948.]

[Footnote 12-49: Ltr, Sen. Henry C. Lodge, Jr. (Mass.), to SecDef, 19 Apr 48, D54-1-3, SecDef files.]

Yet as the timing of Senator Lodge's letter suggests, the political implications of the segregation fight were a prime concern of every politician involved, and Forrestal had to act with this fact in mind. The administration considered the Wallace campaign a real but minor threat because of his appeal to black voters in the early months of the campaign.[12-50] The Republican incursion into the civil rights field was more ominous, and Forrestal, having acknowledged Lodge's letter, turned to Lester Granger for help in drafting a detailed reply. It took Granger some time to suggest an approach because he agreed with Lodge on many points but found some of his inferences as unsound as the Army's policy. For instance Lodge approved Eisenhower's comments on segregation, and the only real difference between Eisenhower and the Army staff was that Eisenhower wanted segregation made more efficient by putting smaller all-black units into racially composite organizations. Negroes opposed segregation as an insult to their race and to their manhood. Granger wanted Forrestal to tell Lodge that no group of Negroes mindful of its public standing could take a position other than total opposition to segregation. Having to choose between Randolph's stand and Eisenhower's, Negroes could not endorse Eisenhower. Granger also thought Forrestal would do well to explain to Lodge that he himself favored for the other services the policy followed by the Navy in the name of improving efficiency and morale.[12-51]

[Footnote 12-50: McCoy and Ruetten, _Quest and Response_, pp. 98-99.]

[Footnote 12-51: Ltr, Granger to Leva, 14 May 48, D54-1-3, SecDef files.]

A reply along these line was prepared, but Marx Leva persuaded (p. 308) Forrestal not to send it until the selective service bill had safely passed Congress.[12-52] Forrestal was "seriously concerned," he wrote the President on 28 May 1948, about the fate of that legislation. He wanted to express his opposition to an amendment proposed by Senator Richard B. Russell of Georgia that would guarantee segregated units for those draftees who wished to serve only with members of their own race. He also wanted to announce his intention of making "further progress" in interracial relations. To that end he had discussed with Special Counsel to the President Clark M. Clifford the creation of an advisory board to recommend specific steps his department could take in the race relations field. Reiterating a long-cherished belief, Forrestal declared that this "difficult problem" could not be solved by issuing an executive order or passing a law, "for progress in this field must be achieved by education, and not by mandate."[12-53] The President agreed to these maneuvers,[12-54] but just three days later Forrestal returned to the subject, passing along to Truman a warning from Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio that both the Russell amendment and one proposed by Senator William Langer of North Dakota to prohibit all segregation were potential roadblocks to passage of the bill.[12-55] In the end Congress rejected both amendments, passing a draft bill without any special racial provisions on 19 June 1948.

[Footnote 12-52: Memo, Leva to Forrestal, 18 May 48, D54-1-3, SecDef files. Forrestal's response, suggesting that Lodge meet with Lester Granger to discuss the matter, was finally sent on 24 Jun 48. See also Memo, Leva for Forrestal, 22 Jun 48, and Ltr, SecDef to Sen. Lodge, 24 Jun 48, both in D51-1-3, SecDef files.]

[Footnote 12-53: Memo, James Forrestal for President, 28 May 48, Secretary's File (PSF), Harry S. Truman Library.]

[Footnote 12-54: Memo, President for SecDef, 1 Jun 48, Secretary's File (PSF), Truman Library.]

[Footnote 12-55: Note, SecDef for President, 31 May 48, sub: Conversation With Senator Taft, Secretary's File (PSF), Truman Library.]

The proposal for an advisory board proved to be Forrestal's last attempt to change the racial practices of the armed forces through gradualism. In the next few weeks the whole problem would be taken out of his hands by a White House grown impatient with his methods. There, in contrast to the comparatively weak position of the Secretary of Defense, who had not yet consolidated his authority, the full force and power of the Commander in Chief would be used to give a dramatic new meaning to equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces. Given the temper of the times, Forrestal's surrender was inevitable, for a successful reform program had to show measurable improvements, and despite his maneuvers with the civil rights activists, the Congress, and the services, Forrestal had no success worth proclaiming in his first eight months of office.

This lack of progress disappointed civil rights leaders, who had perhaps overestimated the racial reforms made when Forrestal was Secretary of the Navy. It can be argued that as Secretary of Defense Forrestal himself was inclined to overestimate them. Nevertheless, he could demonstrate some systematic improvement in the lot of the black sailor, enough improvement, according to his gradualist philosophy, to assure continued progress. Ironically, considering Forrestal's faith in the efficacy of education and persuasion, whatever can be counted as his success in the Navy was accomplished by the firm authority he and his immediate subordinates exercised during the last months of (p. 309) the war. Yet this authority was precisely what he lacked in his new office, where his power was limited to only a general control over intransigent services that still insisted on their traditional autonomy.

In any case, by 1948 there was no hope for widespread reform through a step-by-step demonstration of the practicality and reasonableness of integration. Too much of the remaining opposition was emotional, rooted in prejudice and tradition, to yield to any but forceful methods. If the services were to be integrated in the short run, integration would have to be forced upon them.

_Executive Order 9981_

Although politics was only one of several factors that led to Executive Order 9981, the order was born during a presidential election campaign, and its content and timing reflect that fact. Having made what could be justified as a military decision in the interest of a more effective use of manpower in the armed forces, the President and his advisers sought to capitalize on the political benefits that might accrue from it.[12-56] The work of the President's Committee on Civil Rights and Truman's subsequent message to Congress had already elevated civil rights to the level of a major campaign issue. As early as November 1947 Clark Clifford, predicting the nomination of Thomas Dewey and Henry Wallace, had advised the President to concentrate on winning the allegiance of the nation's minority voters, especially the black, labor, and Jewish blocs.[12-57] Clifford had discounted the threat of a southern defection, but in the spring of 1948 southern Democrats began to turn from the party, and the black vote, an important element in the big city Democratic vote since the formation of the Roosevelt coalition, now became in the minds of the campaign planners an essential ingredient in a Truman victory. Through the efforts of Oscar Ewing, head of the Federal Security Administration and White House adviser on civil rights matters, and several other politicians, Harry Truman was cast in the role of minority rights champion.[12-58]

[Footnote 12-56: Interv, Nichols with Ewing; Interv, Blumenson with Leva.]

[Footnote 12-57: Memo, Clark Clifford for President, 19 Nov 47; ibid., 17 Aug 48, sub: The 1948 Campaign; both in Truman Library. See also Cabell B. Phillips, _The Truman Presidency_ (New York: Macmillan, 1966), pp. 198-99, and McCoy and Ruetten, _Quest and Response_, ch. VI.]

[Footnote 12-58: Interv, Nichols with Ewing.]

Theirs was not a difficult task, for the President's identification with the civil rights movement had become part of the cause of his unpopularity in some Democratic circles and a threat to his renomination. He overcame the attempt to deny him the presidential nomination in June, and he accepted the strong civil rights platform that emerged from the convention. The resolution committee of that convention had proposed a mild civil rights plank in the hope of preventing the defection of southern delegates, but in a dramatic floor fight Hubert H. Humphrey, the mayor of Minneapolis and a candidate for the U.S. Senate, forced through one of the strongest civil rights statements in the history of the party. This plank endorsed Truman's congressional message on civil rights and called (p. 310) for "Congress to support our President in guaranteeing these basic and fundamental rights ... the right of equal treatment in the service and defense of our nation."[12-59]

[Footnote 12-59: Quoted in Memo, Leva for SecDef, 15 Jul 48, D54-1-3, SecDef files.]

Truman admitted to Forrestal that "he had not himself wanted to go as far as the Democratic platform went on the civil rights issue." The President had no animus toward those who voted against the platform; he would have done the same if he had come from their states. But he was determined to run on the platform, and for him, he later said, a platform was not a window dressing. His southern colleagues understood him. When a reporter pointed out to Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina that the President had only accepted a platform similar to those supported by Roosevelt, the governor answered, "I agree, but Truman really means it."[12-60] After the platform fight the Alabama and Mississippi delegates walked out of the convention. The Dixiecrat revolt was on in earnest.

[Footnote 12-60: Quoted in Truman, _Memoirs_, II:183; see also Interv, Nichols with Truman, and Millis, _Forrestal Diaries_, p. 458.]

Both the Democratic platform and the report of the President's Civil Rights Committee referred to discrimination in the federal government, a matter obviously susceptible to presidential action. For once the "do-nothing" Congress could not be blamed, and if Truman failed to act promptly he would only invite the wrath of the civil rights forces he was trying to court. Aware of this political necessity, the President's advisers had been studying the areas in which the President alone might act in forbidding discrimination as well as the mechanics by which he might make his actions effective. According to Oscar Ewing, the advisers had decided as early as October 1947 that the best way to handle discrimination in the federal government was to issue a presidential order securing the civil rights of both civilian government employees and members of the armed forces. In the end the President decided to issue two executive orders.[12-61]

[Footnote 12-61: Interv, Nichols with Ewing.]

Clifford, Ewing, and Philleo Nash, who was a presidential specialist on minority matters, worked on drafting both orders. After consulting with Truman Gibson, Nash proposed that the order directed to the services should create a committee within the military establishment to push for integration, one similar to the McCloy committee in World War II. Like Gibson, Nash was convinced that change in the armed forces racial policy would come only through a series of steps initiated in each service. By such steps progress had been made in the Navy through its Special Programs Unit and in the Army through the efforts of the McCloy committee. Nash argued against the publication of an executive order that spelled out integration or condemned segregation. Rather, let the order to the services call for equal treatment and opportunity--the language of the Democratic platform. Tie it to military efficiency, letting the services discover, under guidance from a White House committee, the inefficiency of segregation. The services would quickly conclude, the advisers assumed, that equal treatment and opportunity were impossible in a segregated (p. 311) system.[12-62] After a series of discussions with the President, Nash, Clifford, and Ewing drew up a version of the order to the services along the lines suggested by Nash.[12-63]

[Footnote 12-62: Memo, Niles for Clifford, 12 May 48; Memo, Clifford for SecDef, 13 May 48, Nash Collection, Truman Library.]

[Footnote 12-63: Interv, Nichols with Ewing.]

The draft underwent one significant revision at the request of the Secretary of Defense. In keeping with his theory that the services should be given the chance to work out their own methods of compliance with the order to integrate, Forrestal wanted no deadlines set. To keep antagonisms to a minimum he wanted the order to call simply for progress "as rapidly as feasible." The President agreed.[12-64]

[Footnote 12-64: Nichols, _Breakthrough on the Color Front_, p. 86.]

The timing of the order was politically important to Truman, and by late July the White House was extremely anxious to publish the document. The President now had his all-important selective service legislation; he was beginning to campaign on a platform calling for a special session of Congress--a Congress dominated by Republicans, who had also just approved a party platform calling for an end to segregation in the armed forces. Haste was evident in the fact that the order, along with copies for the service secretaries, was sent to the Secretary of Defense on the morning of 26 July--the day it was issued--for comment and review by that afternoon.[12-65] The order was also submitted to Walter White and A. Philip Randolph before it was issued.[12-66]

[Footnote 12-65: Ltr, Donald S. Dawson, Admin Asst to the President, to SecDef, 26 Jul 48. The executive order on equal opportunity for federal employees was also issued on 26 July.]

[Footnote 12-66: Columbia University Oral Hist Interv with Wilkins.]

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 passed 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 document, 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 documents 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 endorsement 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 assistant, 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 pronouncement 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 _Constitution_, 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 substituted 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 assistant 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 participate 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.

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