[Footnote 14-12: Interv, author with Roy K. Davenport, 7 Oct 71, CMH.]

The service objections to a carefully spelled out policy were in themselves quite convincing to Lanham and Reid. Reid agreed with Eugene Zuckert, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, that "probably the most logical and soundest approach" was for each service to prepare a policy statement and explain how it was being carried out. The board could then prepare a general policy based on these statements, and, with the approval of the Secretary of Defense, send it to the Fahy Committee in time for its report to the President.[14-13] But if Zuckert's scheme was logical and sound, it also managed to reduce the secretary's status to final endorsement officer. Such a role never appealed to James Forrestal, and would be even less acceptable to the politically energetic Louis Johnson, who succeeded Forrestal as Secretary of Defense on 28 March 1949.

[Footnote 14-13: Memo for Files, Clarence H. Osthagen, Assistant to SecAF, 31 Mar 49, sub: Conference With Thomas Reid, FC file.]

Reid appreciated this distinction, and while he was willing to abandon the idea of a policy directive spelling out matters of personnel administration, he was determined that there be a general policy statement on the subject and that it originate not with the services but with the Secretary of Defense, who would then review individual service plans for implementing his directive.[14-14] Reid set the board's staff to this task, but it took several draftings, each stronger and more specific than the last, before a directive acceptable to Reid and Lanham was devised.[14-15] Approved by the full board on 5 April 1949 and signed by Secretary Johnson the next day, the directive reiterated the President's executive order, adding that all persons would be considered on the basis of individual merit and ability and must qualify (p. 346) according to the prescribed standards for enlistment, promotion, assignment, and school attendance. All persons would be accorded equal opportunity for appointment, advancement, professional improvement, and retention, and although some segregated units would be retained, "qualified" Negroes would be assigned without regard to race. The secretary ordered the services to reexamine their policies and submit detailed plans for carrying out this directive.[14-16]

[Footnote 14-14: Memo, Thomas Reid for Asst SecNav, 1 Apr 49, sub: Statement on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity, FC file.]

[Footnote 14-15: PPB, Draft Memo, SecDef for Svc Secys (prepared by Col J. F. Cassidy for Reid), 31 Mar 49; PPB, Proposed Policy for the National Military Establishment, 4 Apr 49; both in FC file.]

[Footnote 14-16: Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 6 Apr 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services; Min, PPB Mtg, 5 Apr 49; both in FC file.]

Although responsible for preparing the secretary's directive, Reid and Lanham had second thoughts about it. They were concerned lest the services treat it as an endorsement of their current policies. Reid pointedly explained to their representatives on the Personnel Policy Board that the service statements due by 1 May should not merely reiterate present practices, but should represent a "sincere effort" by the departments to move toward greater racial equality.[14-17] Service responses, he warned, would be scrutinized to determine "their adequacy in the light of the intent of the Secretary's policy." Reid later admitted to Secretary Johnson that the directive was so broadly formed that it "permits almost any practice under it."[14-18] He, Lanham, and others agreed that since its contents were bound to reach the press anyway, the policy should be publicized in a way that played down generalizations and emphasized the responsibilities it imposed for new directions. Johnson agreed, and the announcement of his directive, emphasizing the importance of new service programs and setting a deadline for their submission, was widely circulated.[14-19]

[Footnote 14-17: Min, PPB Mtg, 8 Apr 49, FC file.]

[Footnote 14-18: Memo, Reid for SecDef, 14 Apr 49, sub: The President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, FC file.]

[Footnote 14-19: Min, PPB Mtg, 5 May 49; NME Press Release 3-49A, 20 Apr 49; both in FC file.]

The directive reflected Louis Johnson's personality, ambition, and administrative strategy. If many of his associates questioned his personal commitment to the principle of integration, or indeed even his private feeling about President Truman's order, all recognized his political ambition and penchant for vigorous and direct action.[14-20] The secretary would recognize the political implications of the executive order just as he would want to exercise personal control over integration, an issue fraught with political uncertainties that an independent presidential committee would only multiply. A dramatic public statement might well serve Johnson's needs. By creating at least the illusion of forward motion in the field of race relations, a directive issued by the Secretary of Defense might neutralize the Fahy Committee as an independent force, protecting the services from outside interference while enhancing Johnson's position in the White House and with the press. A "blustering bully," one of Fahy's assistants later called Johnson, whose directive was designed, he charged, to put the Fahy Committee out of business.[14-21]

[Footnote 14-20: This conclusion is based on Interviews, author with Charles Fahy, 8 Feb 68, James C. Evans, 6 Apr 69, and Brig Gen Charles T. Lanham, 10 Jan 71. It is also based on letters to author from John Ohly, 9 Jan 71, and Thomas Reid, 15 Jan 71. All in CMH.]

[Footnote 14-21: Memo, Kenworthy for Chief of Military History, 13 Oct 76. CMH.]

If such was his motive, the secretary was taking a chance. (p. 347) Announcing his directive to the press transformed what could have been an innocuous, private reaffirmation of the department's pledge of equal treatment and opportunity into a public exercise in military policymaking. The Secretary of Defense in effect committed himself to a public review of the services' racial practices. In this sense the responses he elicited from the Army and Navy were a disappointment. Both services contented themselves with an outline of their current policies and ignored the secretary's request for future plans. The Army offered statistics to prove that its present program guaranteed equal opportunity, while the Navy concluded that its practices and procedures revealed "no inconsistencies" with the policy prescribed by the Secretary of Defense.[14-22] Summing up his reaction to these responses for the Personnel Policy Board, Reid said that the Army had a poor policy satisfactorily administered, while the Navy had an acceptable policy poorly administered. Neither service complied "with the spirit or letter of the request."[14-23]

[Footnote 14-22: Memo, Actg SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 2 May 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Navy and Marine Corps; Memo, SA for SecDef, 21 Apr 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services; both in FC file.]

[Footnote 14-23: Min, PPB Mtg, 5 May 49, FC file.]



Not all the board members agreed. In the wake of the Army and Navy replies, some saw the possible need for separate service policies rather than a common policy; considering the many advances enumerated in the replies, one member even suggested that Johnson might achieve more by getting the services to prosecute their current policies vigorously. Although Chairman Reid promised that these suggestions would all be taken into consideration, he still hoped to use the Air Force response to pry further concessions out of the Army and Navy.[14-24]

[Footnote 14-24: Ibid.; see also Ltr, Thomas Reid to Richard Dalfiume, 1 Apr 65, Incl to Ltr, Reid to author, 15 Jan 71. All in CMH.]

The Air Force plan had been in existence for some time, its implementation delayed because Symington had agreed with Royall in January that a joint Army-Air Force plan might be developed and because he and Zuckert needed the time to sell the new plan to some of their senior military assistants.[14-25] But greater familiarity with the plan quickly convinced Royall that the Army and Air Force (p. 348) positions could never be reconciled, and the Air Force plan was independently presented to the Fahy Committee and later, with some revision that further liberalized its provisions, to Johnson as the Air Force reply to his directive.[14-26] The Personnel Policy Board approved the Air Force's proposal for the integration of a large group of its black personnel, and after discussing it with Fahy and the other services, Reid recommended to the Secretary of Defense that he approve it also.[14-27]

[Footnote 14-25: Min, War Council Mtg, 11 Jan 49, FC file; see also Interv, author with W. Stuart Symington, 1974, CMH.]

[Footnote 14-26: Memo, SecAF for Chmn, PPB, OSD, 30 Apr 49; Memo, Asst SecAF for SecAF, 20 Apr 49, sub: Department of Air Force Implementation of Department of Defense Policy on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services; both in SecAF files.]

[Footnote 14-27: Min, PPB Mtg, 5 May 49; Memo, Reid for SecDef, 10 May 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces, FC file.]

To achieve maximum benefit from the Air Force plan, Reid and his associates had to link it publicly with the inadequate replies from the other services. Disregarding the views of some board members, he suggested that Johnson reject the Army and Navy answers and, without indicating the form he thought their answers should take, order them to prepare new proposals.[14-28] Johnson would also have to ignore a warning from Secretary of the Army Royall, who had recently reminded him that Forrestal had assured Congress during the selective service hearings that the administration would not issue a preemptory order completely abolishing segregation. "I have no reason to believe that the President had changed his mind," Royall continued, "but I think you should be advised of these circumstances because if any action were later taken by you or other authority to abolish segregation in the Army I am confident that these Southern senators would remember this incident."[14-29]

[Footnote 14-28: Ibid.]

[Footnote 14-29: Memo, SA for SecDef, 22 Apr 49, OSA 291.2.]

Despite Royall's not so subtle warning, Reid's scheme worked. The Secretary of Defense explicitly and publicly approved the Air Force program and rejected those of the Army and Navy. Johnson told the Army, for example, that he was pleased with the progress made in the past few years, but he saw "that much remains to be done and that the rate of progress toward the objectives of the Executive Order must be accelerated."[14-30] He gave the recalcitrants until 25 May to submit "specific additional actions which you propose to take."

[Footnote 14-30: Memo, SecDef for SA, 13 May 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces; idem for SecAF and SecNav, 11 May 49, same sub; DOD Press Release 35-49A, 11 May 42. All in FC file.]

The Committee's Recommendations

If there was ever any question of what their programs should contain, the services had only to turn to the Fahy Committee for plenty of advice. The considerable attention paid by senior officials of the Department of Defense to racial matters in the spring of 1949 could be attributed in part to the commonly held belief that the Fahy Committee planned an integration crusade, using the power of the White House to transform the services' racial policies in a profound and dramatic way. Indeed, some members of the committee itself demanded that the chairman "lay down the law to the services."[14-31] But this approach, Charles Fahy decided, ignored both the personalities of the (p. 349) participants and the realities of the situation.

[Footnote 14-31: Interv, author with Fahy.]



The armed forces had just won a great world war, and the opinions of the military commanders, Fahy reasoned, would carry much weight with the American public. In any conflict between the committee and the services, Fahy believed that public opinion would be likely to side with the military. He wanted the committee to issue no directive. Instead, as he reported to the President, the committee would seek the confidence and help of the armed services in working out changes in manpower practices to achieve Truman's objectives.[14-32] It was important to Fahy that the committee not make the mistake of telling the services what should be done and then have to drop the matter with no assurances that anything would be done. He was determined, rather, to obtain not only a change in policy, but also a "program in being" during the life of the committee. To achieve this change the group would have to convince the Army and the other services of the need for and justice of integration. To do less, to settle for the issuance of an integration directive alone, would leave the services the (p. 350) option of later disregarding the reforms on the grounds of national security or for other reasons. Fahy explained to the President that all this would take time.[14-33] "Take all the time you need," Truman told his committee.[14-34] This the committee proceeded to do, gathering thousands of pages of testimony, while its staff under the direction of Executive Secretary Edwin W. Kenworthy toured military installations, analyzed the existing programs and operations of the three services, and perused the reams of pertinent historical documents.

[Footnote 14-32: Ibid.; see also Fahy Cmte, "A Progress Report for the President," 7 Jun 49, FC file.]

[Footnote 14-33: Memo, Fahy for Brig Gen James L. Collins, Jr. 16 Aug 76, CMH.]

[Footnote 14-34: Interv, author with Fahy.]

That the committee expected the Secretary of Defense to take the lead in racial affairs, refraining from dictating policy itself, did not mean that Fahy and his associates lacked a definite point of view. From the first, Fahy understood Truman's executive order to mean unequivocally that the services would have to abandon segregation, an interpretation reinforced in a later discussion he had with the President.[14-35] The purpose of the committee, in Fahy's view, was not to impose integration on the services, but to convince them of the merits of the President's order and to agree with them on a plan to make it effective.

[Footnote 14-35: Interv, Blumenson with Fahy, 7 Apr 66; Interv, author with Davenport, 31 Oct 71; both in CMH.]

The trouble, the committee quickly learned, lay in trying to convince the Army of the practical necessity for integration. On one hand the Army readily admitted that there were some advantages in spreading black soldiers through the white ranks. "It might remove any false charges that equal opportunities are not provided," General Bradley testified. "It would simplify administration and the use of manpower, and it would distribute our losses in battle more nearly in proportion to the percentage of the two races."[14-36] But then the Army had so carefully and often repeated the disadvantages of integration that Bradley and others could very easily offer a logical and well-rehearsed apology for continuing the Army's current policy. Army officials repeatedly testified, for example, that their situation fundamentally differed from those of the other two services. The Army had a much higher proportion of Negroes in its ranks, 10 to 11 percent during the period of the committee's life, and in addition was required by law to accept by the thousands recruits, many of them black, whose aptitude or education would automatically disqualify them for the Air Force or Navy. Armed with these inequities, the Army remained impervious to the claims of the Navy and Air Force, defending its time-honored charge that segregation was necessary to preserve the efficiency of its combat forces. In Zuckert's opinion, the Army was trying to maintain the status quo at any cost.[14-37]

[Footnote 14-36: Testimony of General Omar N. Bradley, Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Mar 49, afternoon session, p. 71.]

[Footnote 14-37: Memo, Asst SecAF for Symington, 11 Apr 49, sub: Statement of the Secretary of the Army Before the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services—March 28, 1949, SecAF files.]

The Army offered other reasons. Its leaders testified that the unlimited induction of Negroes into an integrated Army would seriously affect enlistments and the morale of troops. Morale in particular affected battle efficiency. Again General Bradley testified.

I consider that a unit has high morale when the men have (p. 351) confidence in themselves, confidence in their fellow members of their unit, and confidence in their leaders. If we try to force integration on the Army before the country is ready to accept these customs, we may have difficulty attaining high morale along the lines I have mentioned.[14-38]

[Footnote 14-38: Testimony of Bradley, Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Mar 49, afternoon session, pp. 71-72.]

Underlying all these discussions of morale and efficiency lurked a deep-seated suspicion of the combat reliability and effectiveness of black troops and the fear that many white soldiers would refuse to serve with blacks. Many Army leaders were convinced that the performance of black troops in the past two wars did not qualify Negroes for a role in the Army's current mission, the execution of field operations in relatively small groups. These reservations were expressed frequently in Army testimony. Bradley, in defense of segregation, for example, cited the performance of the 92d Division. When asked whether a 15 percent black Army would reduce efficiency, he said, "from our experience in the past I think the time might come when it wouldn't, but the average educational standards of these men would not be up to the average of the white soldier. In modern combat a man is thrown very much on his own initiative."[14-39] This attitude was closely related to the Army's estimates of white morale: white soldiers, the argument ran, especially many among those southerners who comprised an unusually high proportion of the Army's strength, would not accept integration. Many white men would refuse to take orders from black superiors, and the mutual dependence of individual soldiers and small units in combat would break down when the races were mingled.

[Footnote 14-39: Ibid., p. 83.]

Although these beliefs were highly debatable, they were tenaciously held by many senior officials and were often couched in terms that were extremely difficult to refute. For instance, Royall summed up the argument on morale: "I am reluctant—and I am sure all sincere citizens will be reluctant—to force a pace faster than is consistent with the efficiency and morale of the Army—or to follow a course inconsistent with the ability of the Army, in the event of war, to take the battlefield with reasonable assurance of success."[14-40]

[Footnote 14-40: Testimony of the Secretary of the Army, Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Mar 49, morning session, p. 28.]

But in time the Fahy Committee found a way, first suggested by its executive secretary, to turn the efficiency argument around. Certainly a most resourceful and imaginative man, Kenworthy had no doubt about the immorality of segregation, but he also understood, as he later told the Secretary of the Army, that whatever might be morally undeniable in the abstract, military efficiency had to govern in matters of military policy. His study of the record and his investigation of existing service conditions convinced him that segregation actually impeded military efficiency. Convinced from the start that appeals to morality would be a waste of time, Kenworthy pressed the committee members to tackle the services on their own ground—efficiency.[14-41] After seeing the Army so effectively dismiss in the name of military efficiency and national security the moral arguments against segregation as being valid but irrelevant, Kenworthy asked Chairman Fahy:

I wonder if the one chance of getting something done isn't (p. 352) to meet the military on their own ground—the question of military efficiency. They have defended their Negro manpower policies on the grounds of efficiency. Have they used Negro manpower efficiently?... Can it be that the whole policy of segregation, especially in large units like the 92nd and 93rd Division, ADVERSELY AFFECTS MORALE AND EFFICIENCY?[14-42]

[Footnote 14-41: Ltr, Kenworthy to SA, 20 Jul 50, FC file; see also Memo, Kenworthy for Chief of Military History, 13 Oct 76, CMH.]

[Footnote 14-42: Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 10 Mar 49, FC file.]

The committee did not have to convince the Navy or the Air Force of the practical necessity for integration. With four years of experience in integrating its ships and stations, the Navy did not bother arguing the merits of integration with the committee, but instead focused its attention on black percentages and the perennial problem of the largely black Steward's Branch. Specifically, naval officials testified that integration increased the Navy's combat efficiency. Speaking for the Air Force, Symington told the committee that "in our position we believe that non-segregation will improve our efficiency in at least some instances" and consequently "it's simply been a case [of] how we are going to do it, not whether we are going to do it." Convinced of the simple justice of integration, Symington also told the committee: "You've got to clear up that basic problem in your heart before you can really get to this subject. Both Zuckert and Edwards feel right on the basic problem."[14-43]

[Footnote 14-43: Testimony of the Secretary of the Air Force, Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Mar 49, afternoon session, p. 27.]

Even while the Air Force and the Navy were assuring Fahy of their belief in the efficiency of integration, they hastened to protect themselves against a change of heart. General Edwards gave the committee a caveat on integration: "if it comes to a matter of lessening the efficiency of the Air Force so it can't go to war and do a good job, there isn't any question that the policy of non-segregation will have to go by the boards. In a case like that, I'd be one of the first to recommend it."[14-44] Secretary of the Navy Sullivan also supported this view and cautioned the committee against making too much of the differences in the services' approach to racial reforms. Each service, he suggested, should be allowed to work out a program that would stand the test of war. "If war comes and we go back [to segregation], then we have taken a very long step in the wrong direction." He wanted the committee to look to the "substance of the advance rather than to the apparent progress."[14-45]

[Footnote 14-44: Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Mar 49, afternoon session, pp. 28-29.]

[Footnote 14-45: Ibid., p. 29.]

Kenworthy predicted that attacking the Army's theory of military efficiency would require considerable research by the committee into Army policy as well as the past performance of black units. Ironically enough, he got the necessary evidence from the Army itself, in the person of Roy K. Davenport.[14-46] Davenport's education at Fisk and Columbia universities had prepared him for the scholar's life, but Pearl Harbor changed all that, and Davenport eventually landed behind a desk in the office that managed the Army's manpower affairs. One of the first black professionals to break through the armed forces racial barrier, Davenport was not a "Negro specialist" and did not wish to be one. Nor could he, an experienced government bureaucrat, be blamed if he saw in the Fahy Committee yet one more well-meaning attempt by (p. 353) an outside group to reform the Army. Only when Kenworthy convinced him that this committee was serious about achieving change did Davenport proceed to explain in great detail how segregation limited the availability of military occupational specialties, schooling, and assignments for Negroes.

[Footnote 14-46: Intervs, Blumenson with Fahy, and author with Fahy.]



Kenworthy decided that the time had come for Fahy to meet Davenport, particularly since the chairman was inclined to be impressed with, and optimistic over, the Army's response to Johnson's directive of 6 April 1949. Fahy, Kenworthy knew, was unfamiliar with military language and the fine art practiced by military staffs of stating a purpose in technical jargon that would permit various interpretations. There was no fanfare, no dramatic scene. Kenworthy simply invited Fahy and Davenport, along with the black officers assigned by the services to assist the committee, to meet informally at his home one evening in April.[14-47]

[Footnote 14-47: This incident is described in detail in Interviews, author with Fahy; Davenport, 17 Oct 71; and E. W. Kenworthy (by telephone), 1 Dec 71. See also Interv, Nichols with Davenport, in Nichols Collection. All in CMH.]

Never one to waste time, Fahy summarized the committee's activities thus far, outlined its dealings with Army witnesses, and then handed out copies of the Army's response to Secretary Johnson's directive. Fahy was inclined to recommend approval, a course agreed to by the black officers present, but he nevertheless turned courteously to the personnel expert from the Department of the Army and asked him for his opinion of the official Army position. Davenport did not hesitate. "The directive [the Army's response to Secretary Johnson's 6 April directive] isn't worth the paper it's written on," he answered. It called for sweeping changes in the administration of the Army's training programs, he explained, but would produce no change because personnel specialists at the training centers would quickly discover that their existing procedures, which excluded so many qualified black soldiers, would fit quite comfortably under the document's idealistic but vague language. The Army's response, Davenport declared, had been very carefully drawn up to retain segregation rather than to end it.

Chairman Fahy seemed annoyed by this declaration. After all, he had listened intently to the Army's claims and promises and was inclined to accept the Army's proposal as a slow, perhaps, but certain way to bring about racial integration. He was, however, a tough-minded man and was greatly impressed by the analysis of the situation (p. 354) presented by the Army employee. When Davenport asked him to reexamine the directive with eyes open to the possibility of deceit, Fahy walked to a corner of the room and reread the Army's statement in the light of Davenport's charges. Witnesses would later remember the flush of anger that came to his face as he read. His committee was going to have to hear more from Davenport.



If efficiency was to be the keynote of the committee's investigation, Davenport explained, it would be a simple thing to prove that the Army was acting inefficiently. In a morning of complex testimony replete with statistical analysis of the Army's manpower management, he and Maj. James D. Fowler, a black West Point graduate and personnel officer, provided the committee with the needed breakthrough. Step by step they led Fahy and his associates through the complex workings of the Army's career guidance program, showing them how segregation caused the inefficient use of manpower on several counts.[14-48] The Army, for example, as part of a continuing effort to find men who could be trained for specialties in which it had a shortage of men, published a monthly list, the so-called "40 Report," of its authorized and actual strength in each of its 490 military occupational specialties. Each of these specialties was further broken down by race. The committee learned that no authorization existed at all for Negroes in 198 of these specialties, despite the fact that in many of them the Army was under its authorized strength. Furthermore, for many of the specialties in which there were no authorizations for Negroes no great skill was needed. In short, it was the policy of segregated service that allowed the Army, which had thousands of jobs unfilled for lack of trained specialists, to continue to deny training and assignment to thousands of Negroes whose aptitude test scores showed them at least minimally suited for those jobs. How could the Army claim that it was operating efficiently when a shortage existed and potentially capable persons were being ignored?

[Footnote 14-48: Fahy Cmte Hearings, 28 Apr 49, morning session.]

One question led to another. If there were no authorizations for black soldiers in 198 specialties, what were the chances for qualified Negroes to attend schools that trained men for these specialties? It turned out that of the 106 school courses available after a man finished basic training, only twenty-one were open to Negroes. That is, 81 percent of the courses offered by the Army were closed to Negroes. The Army denied that discrimination was involved. Since (p. 355) existing black units could not use the full range of the Army's military occupational specialties, went the official line of reasoning, it would be wasteful and inefficient to train men for nonexistent jobs in those units. It followed that the Organization and Training Division must exclude many Negroes from being classified in specialties for which they were qualified and from Army schools that would train others for such unneeded specialties.



This reasoning was in the interest of segregation, not efficiency, and Davenport and others were able to prove to the committee's satisfaction that the Army's segregation policy could be defended neither in terms of manpower efficiency nor common fairness. With Davenport and Fowler's testimony, Charles Fahy later explained, he began to "see light for a solution."[14-49] He began to see how he would probably be able to gain the committee's double objective: the announcement of an integration policy for the Army and the establishment of a practical program that would immediately begin moving the Army from segregation to integration.

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

In fact, military efficiency was a potent weapon which, if skillfully handled, might well force the Army into important concessions leading to integration. Taking its cue from Davenport and Fowler, the committee would contend that, as the increasing complexity of war had created a demand for skilled manpower, the country could ill-afford to use any of its soldiers below their full capacity or fail to train them adequately. With a logic understandable to President and public alike, the committee could later state that since maximum military efficiency demanded that all servicemen be given an equal opportunity to discover and exploit their talents, an indivisible link existed between military efficiency and equal opportunity.[14-50] Thus equal opportunity in the name of military efficiency became one of the committee's basic premises; until the end of its existence the committee hammered away at this premise.

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

While the committee's logic was unassailable when applied to the plight of a relatively small number of talented and qualified black soldiers, a different solution would have to prevail when the far larger number of Negroes ineligible for Army schooling either by talent, inclination, or previous education was considered. Here the Army's plea for continued segregation in the name of military efficiency carried some weight. How could it, the Army asked, endanger the morale and efficiency of its fighting forces by integrating these (p. 356) men? How could it, with its low enlistment standards, abandon its racial quota and risk enlarging the already burdensome concentration of "professional black privates?" The committee admitted the justice of the Army's claim that the higher enlistment score required by the Navy and Air Force resulted in the Army's getting more than its share of men in the low-test categories IV and V. And while Kenworthy believed that immediate integration was less likely to cause serious trouble than the Army's announced plan of mixing the races in progressively smaller units, he too accepted the argument that it would be dangerous to reassign the Army's group of professional black privates to white units. Fahy saw the virtue of the Army's position here; his committee never demanded the immediate, total integration of the Army.

One solution to the problem, reducing the number of soldiers with low aptitude by forcing the other services to share equally in the burden of training and assimilating the less gifted and often black enlistee and draftee, had recently been rejected by the Navy and Air Force, a rejection endorsed by Secretary of Defense Forrestal. Even in the event that the Army could raise its enlistment standards and the other services be induced to lower theirs, much time would elapse before the concentration of undereducated Negroes could be broken up. Davenport was aware of all this when he limited his own recommendations to the committee to matters concerning the integration of black specialists, the opening of all Army schools to Negroes, and the establishment of some system to monitor the Army's implementation of these reforms.[14-51]

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

Having gained some experience, the committee was now able to turn the Army's efficiency argument against the racial quota. It decided that the quota had helped defeat the Gillem Board's aim of using Negroes on a broad professional scale. It pointed out that, when forced by manpower needs and the selective service law to set a lower enlistment standard, the Army had allowed its black quota to be filled to a great extent by professional privates and denied to qualified black men, who could be used on a broad professional scale, the chance to enlist.[14-52] It was in the name of military efficiency, therefore, that the committee adopted a corollary to its demand for equal opportunity in specialist training and assignment: the racial quota must be abandoned in favor of a quota based on aptitude.

[Footnote 14-52: Fahy Cmte, "Initial Recommendations by the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services," attached to Fahy Cmte, "A Progress Report for the President", 7 Jun 49, FC file.]

Fahy was not sure, he later admitted, how best to proceed at this point with the efficiency issue, but his committee obviously had to come up with some kind of program if only to preserve its administrative independence in the wake of Secretary Johnson's directive. As Kenworthy pointed out, short of demanding the elimination of all segregated units, there was little the committee could do that went beyond Johnson's statement.[14-53] Fahy, at least, was not prepared to settle for that. His solution, harmonizing with his belief in the efficacy of long-range practical change and his estimate of the committee's strength vis-a-vis the services' strength, was (p. 357) to prepare a "list of suggestions to guide the Army and Navy in its [sic] determinations."[14-54] The suggestions, often referred to by the committee as its "Initial Recommendations," would in the fullness of time, Fahy thought, effect substantial reforms in the way the Negro was employed by the services.

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

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

The committee's recommendations, sent to the Personnel Policy Board in late May 1949, are easily summarized.[14-55] Questioning why the Navy's policy, "so progressive on its face," had attracted so few Negroes into the general service, the committee suggested that Negroes remembered the Navy's old habit of restricting them to servant duties. It wanted the Navy to aim a vigorous recruitment program at the black community in order to counteract this lingering suspicion. At the same time the committee wanted the Navy to make a greater effort among black high school students to attract qualified Negroes into the Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps program. To reinforce these campaigns and to remove one more vestige of racial inequality in naval service, the committee also suggested that the Navy give to chief stewards all the perquisites of chief petty officers. The lack of this rating, in particular, had continued to cast doubt on the Navy's professed policy, the committee charged. "There is no reason, except custom, why the chief steward should not be a chief petty officer, and that custom seems hardly worth the suspicion it evokes." Finally, the committee wanted the Navy to adopt the same entry standards as the Army. It rejected the Navy's claim that men who scored below ninety were unusable in the general service and called for an analysis by outside experts to determine what jobs in the Navy could be performed by men who scored between seventy and ninety. At the same time the committee reiterated that it did not intend the Navy or any of the services to lower the qualifications for their highly skilled positions.

[Footnote 14-55: Min, War Council Mtg, 24 May 49; Fahy Cmte, "Initial Recommendations by the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services," attached to Fahy Cmte, "A Progress Report for the President", 7 Jun 49, FC file. Excerpts from the "Initial Recommendations" were sent to the services via the Personnel Policy Board, which explains the document in the SecNav's files with the penciled notation "Excerpt from Fahy Recommendation 5/19." See also Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 16 May 49, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]

The committee also suggested to the Air Force that it establish a common enlistment standard along with the other services. Commenting that the Air Force had apparently been able to use efficiently thousands of men with test scores below ninety in the past, the committee doubted that the contemporary differential in Air Force and Army standards was justified. With a bow to Secretary Symington's new and limited integration policy, the committee deferred further recommendations.

It showed no such reluctance when it came to the Army. It wanted the Army to abolish racial considerations in the designation of military occupational specialties, attendance at its schools, and use of its school graduates in their military specialties. In line with the establishment of a parity of enlistment standards among the services, the committee wanted the Army to abandon its racial quotas. The committee did not insist on an immediate end to segregation in the Army, believing that no matter how desirable, such a drastic change could not be accomplished, as Davenport had warned, without very (p. 358) serious administrative confusion. Besides, there were other pragmatic reasons for adopting the gradualist approach. For the committee to demand immediate and complete integration would risk an outcry from Capitol Hill that might endanger the whole reform program. Gradual change, on the other hand, would allow time for qualified Negroes to attend school courses, and the concept that Negroes had a right to equal educational opportunities was one that was very hard for the segregationists to attack, given the American belief in education and the right of every child to its benefits.[14-56] If the Army could be persuaded to adopt these recommendations, the committee reasoned, the Army itself would gradually abolish segregation. The committee's formula for equality of treatment and opportunity in the Army, therefore, was simple and straightforward, but each of its parts had to be accepted to achieve the whole.

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

As it was, the committee's program for gradual change proved to be a rather large dose for senior service officials. An Army representative on the Personnel Policy Board staff characterized the committee's work as "presumptuous," "subjective," and "argumentative." He also charged the committee with failing to interpret the executive order and thus leaving unclear whether the President wanted across-the-board integration, and if so how soon.[14-57] The Personnel Policy Board ignored these larger questions when it considered the subject on 26 May, focusing its opposition instead on two of the committee's recommendations. It wanted Secretary Johnson to make "a strong representation" to Fahy against the suggestion that there be a parity of scores for enlistment in the services. The board also unanimously opposed the committee's suggestion that the Army send all qualified Negroes to specialty schools within eighteen months of enlistment, arguing that such a policy would be administratively impossible to enforce and would discriminate against white servicemen.[14-58]

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

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

Chairman Reid temporized somewhat in his recommendations to Secretary Johnson. He admitted that the whole question of parity of entrance standards was highly controversial. He recognized the justice in establishing universal standards for enlistment through selective service, but at the same time he believed it unfair to ask any service to accept volunteers of lesser quality than it could obtain through good enlistment and recruitment methods. He wanted Johnson to concentrate his attack on the parity question.[14-59]

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

Before Johnson could act on his personnel group's recommendations, the Army and Navy formally submitted their second replies to his directive on the executive order. Surprisingly, the services provided a measure of support for the Fahy Committee. For its part, the Navy was under particular pressure to develop an acceptable program. It, after all, had been the first to announce a general integration policy for which it had, over the years, garnered considerable praise. But now it (p. 359) was losing this psychological advantage under steady and persistent criticism from civil rights leaders, the President's committee, and, finally, the Secretary of Defense himself. Proud of its racial policy and accustomed to the rapport it had always enjoyed with Forrestal, the Navy was suddenly confronted with a new Secretary of Defense who bluntly noted its "lack of any response" to his 6 April directive, thus putting the Navy in the same league as the Army.

Secretary Johnson's rejection of the Navy's response made a reexamination of its race program imperative, but it was still reluctant to follow the Fahy Committee's proposals completely. Although the personnel bureau had already planned special recruitment programs, as well as a survey of all jobs in the Navy and the mental requirements for each, the idea of making chief petty officers out of chief stewards caused "great anger and resentment in the upper reaches of BuPers," Capt. Fred Stickney of the bureau admitted to a representative of the committee. Stickney was confident that the bureau's opposition to this change could be surmounted, but he was not so sure that the Navy would surrender on the issue of equality of enlistment standards. The committee's arguments to the contrary, the Navy remained convinced that standardizing entrance requirements for all the services would mean "lowering the calibre of men taken into the Navy."[14-60]

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

But even here the Navy proved unexpectedly conciliatory. Replying to the Secretary of Defense a second time on 23 May, Acting Secretary Dan Kimball committed the Navy to a program that incorporated to a great extent the recommendations of the Fahy Committee, including raising the status of chief stewards and integrating recruit training in the Marine Corps. While he did not agree with the committee's proposal for equality of enlistment standards, Kimball broke the solid opposition to the committee's recommendation on this subject by promising to study the issue to determine where men who scored less than forty-five (the equivalent of General Classification Test score ninety) could be used without detriment to the Navy.[14-61]

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

The question of parity of enlistment standards aside, the Navy's program generally followed the suggestions of the Fahy Committee, and Chairman Reid urged Johnson to accept it.[14-62] The secretary's acceptance was announced on 7 June and was widely reported in the press.[14-63]

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

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

To some extent the Army had an advantage over the Navy in its dealings with Johnson and Fahy. It never had an integration policy to defend, had in fact consistently opposed the imposition of one, and was not, therefore, under the same psychological pressures to react positively to the secretary's latest rebuff. Determined to defend its current interpretation of the Gillem Board policy, the Army resisted the Personnel Policy Board's use of the Air Force plan, Secretary Johnson's directive, and the initial recommendations of the Fahy Committee (p. 360) to pry out of it a new commitment to integrate. In lieu of such a commitment, Acting Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray[14-64] offered Secretary Johnson another spirited defense of Circular 124 on 26 May, promising that the Army's next step would be to integrate black companies in the white battalions of the combat arms. This step could not be taken, he added, until the reactions to placing black battalions in white regiments and black companies in composite battalions had been observed in detail over a period of time. Gray remained unmoved by the committee's appeal for the wider use and broader training of the talented black soldiers in the name of combat efficiency and continued to defend the status quo. He cited with feeling the case of the average black soldier who because of his "social environment" had most often missed the opportunity to develop leadership abilities and who against the direct competition with the better educated white soldier would find it difficult to "rise above the level of service tasks." Segregation, Gray claimed, was giving black soldiers the chance to develop leadership "unhindered and unfettered by overshadowing competition they are not yet equipped to meet." He would be remiss in his duties, he warned Johnson, if he failed to report the concern of many senior officers who believed that the Army had already gone too far in inserting black units into white units and that "we are weakening to a dangerous degree the combat efficiency of our Army."[14-65]

[Footnote 14-64: Following the resignation of Secretary Royall, President Truman nominated Gordon Gray as Secretary of the Army. His appointment was confirmed by the Senate on 13 June 1949. A lawyer, Gray had been a newspaper publisher in North Carolina before his appointment as assistant secretary in 1947.]

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

The Army's response found the Fahy Committee and the office of the Secretary of Defense once again in agreement. The committee rejected Gray's statement, and Kenworthy drew up a point-by-point rebuttal. He contended that unless the Army took intermediate steps, its first objective, a specific quota of black units segregated at the battalion level, would always block the realization of integration, its ultimate objective.[14-66] The secretary's Personnel Policy Board struck an even harder blow. Chairman Reid called Gray's statement a rehash of Army accomplishments "with no indication of significant change or step forward." It ignored the committee's recommendations. In particular, and in contrast to the Navy, which had agreed to restudy the enlistment parity question, the Army had rejected the committee's request that it reconsider its quota system. Reid's blunt advice to Johnson: reject the Army's reply and demand a new one by a definite and early date.[14-67]

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

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

Members of the Fahy Committee met with Johnson and Reid on 1 June. Despite the antagonism that was growing between the Secretary of Defense and the White House group, the meeting produced several notable agreements. For his part, Johnson, accepting the recommendations of Fahy and Reid, agreed to reject the Army's latest response and (p. 361) order the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff to confer informally with the committee in an attempt to produce an acceptable program. At the same time, Johnson made no move to order a common enlistment standard; he told Fahy that the matter was extremely controversial and setting such standards would involve rescinding previous interdepartmental agreements. On the committee's behalf, Fahy agreed to reword the recommendation on schooling for all qualified Negroes within eighteen months of enlistment and to discuss further the parity issue.[14-68]

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



General Lanham endorsed the committee's belief that there was a need for practical, intermediate steps when he drafted a response to the Army for Secretary Johnson to sign. "It is my conviction," he wanted Johnson to say, "that the Department of the Army must meet this issue [the equal opportunity imposed by Executive Order 9981] squarely and that its action, no matter how modest or small at its inception, must be progressive in spirit and carry with it the unmistakable promise of an ultimate solution in consonance with the Chief Executive's position and our national policy."[14-69]

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

But the Army received no such specific instruction. Although Johnson rejected the Army's second reply and demanded another based on a careful consideration of the Fahy Committee's recommendations,[14-70] he deleted Lanham's demand for immediate steps toward providing equal opportunity. Johnson's rejection of Lanham's proposal—a tacit rejection of the committee's basic premise as well—did not necessarily indicate a shift in Johnson's position, but it did establish a basis for future rivalry between the secretary and the committee. Until now Johnson and the committee, through the medium of the Personnel Policy Board, had worked in an informal partnership whose fruitfulness was readily apparent in the development of acceptable Navy and Air Force programs and in Johnson's rejection of the Army's inadequate responses. But this cooperation was to be (p. 362) short-lived; it would disappear altogether as the Fahy Committee began to press the Army, while the Secretary of Defense, in reaction, began to draw closer to the Army's position.[14-71]

[Footnote 14-70: Memo, SecDef for SA, 7 Jun 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services; NME, Off of Pub Info, Press Release 78-49A, 7 Jun 49. The secretary gave the Army a new deadline of 20 June, but by mutual agreement of all concerned this date was postponed several times and finally left to the Secretary of the Army to submit his program "at his discretion," although at the earliest possible date. See Memo, T. Reid for Maj Gen Levin Allen, 6 Jul 49, sub: Army Reply to the Secretary of Defense on Equality of Treatment; Min, PPB Mtg, 18 Aug 49. All in FC file.]

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

A Summer of Discontent

The committee approached its negotiations with the Army with considerable optimism. Kenworthy was convinced that the committee's moderate and concrete recommendations had reassured Reid and the Personnel Policy Board and would strengthen its hand in dealing with the recalcitrant Army,[14-72] and Fahy, outlining for the President the progress the committee had made with the services, said that he looked forward to his coming meetings with Gray and Bradley.[14-73]

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

[Footnote 14-73: Fahy Cmte, "A Progress Report for the President," 7 Jun 49, FC file.]

To remove any unnecessary obstacle to what Fahy hoped would be fruitful sessions, the committee revised its initial recommendations to the Army. First, as Fahy had promised Johnson, it modified its position on guaranteeing qualified black soldiers already assigned to units the opportunity to attend Army schools within eighteen months. Calling the imbroglio over this issue a mere misunderstanding—the committee did not intend that preferential treatment be given Negroes nor that the Army train more people than it needed—Fahy explained to Johnson that the committee only wanted to make sure that qualified Negroes would have the same chance as qualified white men. It would be happy, Fahy said, to work with the Army on rewording the recommendation.[14-74] The committee also added the suggestion that so long as racial units existed, the Army might permit enlisted men in the four lowest grades, at their request, to remain in a unit predominantly composed of men of their own race. This provision, however, was not to extend to officers and noncommissioned officers in the top three grades, who received their promotions on a worldwide competitive basis. Finally, the committee offered a substitute for the numerical quota it wanted abolished. So that the Army would not get too many low-scoring recruits, either black or white, the committee proposed a separate quota for each category in the classification test scores. Only so many voluntary enlistments would be accepted in categories I through III, their numbers based on the normal spread of scores that existed in both the wartime and peacetime Army. If the Army netted more high scorers than average in any period, it would induct fewer men from the next category. It would also deny reenlistment to any man scoring less than eighty (category IV).[14-75]

[Footnote 14-74: Ltr, Fahy to Johnson, 15 Jun 49, FC file.]

[Footnote 14-75: Idem to SA, 25 Jul 49, FC file.]

After meeting first with Gray and then the Chief of Staff, Fahy called the sessions "frank and cordial" and saw some prospect of accord, although their positions were still far apart.[14-76] Just how far apart had already become apparent on 5 July when Gray presented (p. 363) Fahy with an outline for yet another program for using black soldiers. This new program was based in part on the comments of the field commanders, and the Director of Personnel and Administration warned that "beyond the steps listed in this plan, there is very little major compromise area left short of complete integration."[14-77] While the Army plan differed from the committee's recommendations in many ways, in essence the disagreement was limited to two fundamental points. Determined to retain segregated units, the Army opposed the reassignment of school-trained Negroes to vacancies in white units; and in order to prevent an influx of Negroes in the low achievement categories, the Army was determined to retain the numerical quota.[14-78]

[Footnote 14-76: Idem to SecDef, 25 Jul 49, FC file.]

[Footnote 14-77: P&A Summary Sheet to DC/S (Adm), 24 Jun 49, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, CSUSA 291.2 Negroes. For comments of Army commanders, see the following Memos: Wade H. Haislip (DC/S Adm) for Army Cmdrs, 8 Jun 49, sub: Draft Recommendations of Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity; Lt Gen M. S. Eddy for CofS, 10 Jun 49, same sub; Lt Gen W. B. Smith for CofS, 10 Jun 49, same sub; Lt Gen S. J. Chamberlain, 5th Army Cmdr, for CofS, 13 Jun 49, same sub; Lt Gen John R. Hodge for CofS, 14 Jun 49, same sub; Gen Jacob Devers, 13 Jun 49, same sub; Gen Thomas T. Handy, 4th Army Cmdr, for CofS, 10 Jun 49, sub: Comments on Fahy Committee Draft Recommendations. All in CSUSA 291.2 Negroes.]

[Footnote 14-78: An Outline Plan for Utilization of Negro Manpower Submitted by the Army to the President's Committee, 5 Jul 49, Incl to Ltr, Fahy to SecDef, 25 Jul 49, FC file. See also Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 23 Jun 49, Fahy Papers, Truman Library; Fahy Cmte, "Meeting to Discuss the Proposals Made by the Army as Preliminary to the Third Response," 11 Jul 49, FC file.]

The committee argued that if the Army was to train men according to their ability, hence efficiently, and in accord with the principle of equality, it must consider assigning them without regard to race. It could not see how removal of the numerical quota would result in a flood of Negroes joining the Army, but it could see how retaining the quota would prevent the enlistment of blacks for long periods of time. These two provisions—that school-trained Negroes be freely assigned and that the quota be abolished—were really the heart of the committee's plan and hope for the gradual integration of the Army. The provisions would not require the abolition of racial units "at this time," Fahy explained to President Truman, but they would gradually extend the integration already practiced in overhead installations and Army schools. The committee could not demand any less, he confessed, in light of the President's order.[14-79]

[Footnote 14-79: Ltrs, Fahy to SecDef and SA, 25 Jul 49; idem to President, 27 Jul 49. All in FC file.]

The committee and the Army had reached a stalemate. As a staff member of the Personnel Policy Board put it, their latest proposal and counterproposals were simply extensions of what had long been put forth by both parties. He advised Chairman Reid to remain neutral until both sides presented their "total proposal."[14-80] But the press was not remaining neutral. The New York Times, for example, accused the Army of stalling and equivocating, engaging in a "private insurrection," and trying "to preserve a pattern of bigotry which caricatures the democratic cause in every corner of the world." There was no room for compromise, the Times added, and President Truman could not retreat without abdicating as Commander in Chief.[14-81] Secretary Gray countered with a statement that the Army was still (p. 364) under injunction from the Secretary of Defense to submit a new race program, and he was contemplating certain new proposals on the military occupational specialty issue.[14-82]

[Footnote 14-80: Memo, Col J. F. Cassidy for Reid, 23 Aug 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Department of the Army, FC file.]

[Footnote 14-81: New York Times, July 16 and 18, 1949.]

[Footnote 14-82: Interv, NBC's "Meet the Press" with Gordon Gray, 18 Jul 49; Ltr, SecDef to Charles Fahy, 3 Aug 49, FC file.]

The Army staff did prepare another reply for the Secretary of Defense, and on 16 September Gray met with Fahy and others to discuss it. General Wade H. Haislip, the Vice Chief of Staff, claimed privately to Gray that the new reply was almost identical with the plan presented to the committee on 5 July and that the new concessions on occupational specialties would only require the conversion of some units from white to black.[14-83] Haislip, however, had not reckoned with the concession that Gray was prepared to make to Fahy. Gray accepted in principle the committee's argument that the assignment of black graduates of specialist schools should not be limited to black units or overhead positions but could be used to fill vacancies in any unit. At the same time, he remained adamant on the quota. When the committee spoke hopefully of the advantages of an Army open to all, the Army contemplated fearfully the racial imbalance that might result. The future was to prove the committee right about the advantages, but as of September 1949 Gray and his subordinates had no intention of giving up the quota.[14-84] Gray did agree, however, to continue studying the quota issue with the committee, and Fahy optimistically reported to President Truman: "It is the Committee's expectation that it will be able within a few weeks to make a formal report to you on a complete list of changes in Army policy and practices."[14-85]

[Footnote 14-83: Memo, VCofS for Gray, 29 Aug 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, CSUSA 291.2 Negroes.]

[Footnote 14-84: Interv, Nichols with Gordon Gray, 1953, in Nichols Collection, CMH; Memo, Kenworthy for Cmte, 19 Sep 49, sub: Meeting With Gray, 16 Sep 49, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]

[Footnote 14-85: Ltrs, Fahy to President, 21 Sep and 26 Sep 49, both in FC file.]

Fahy made his prediction before Secretary of Defense Johnson took a course of action that, in effect, rendered the committee's position untenable. On 30 September Johnson received from Gray a new program for the employment of black troops. Without reference to the Fahy Committee, Johnson approved the proposal and announced it to the press. Gray's program opened all military occupational specialties to all qualified men, abolished racial quotas for the Army's schools, and abolished racially separate promotion systems and standards. But it also specifically called for retention of the racial quota on enlistments and conspicuously failed to provide for the assignment of black specialists beyond those jobs already provided by the old Gillem Board policy.[14-86] Secretary Gray had asked for Fahy's personal approval before forwarding the plan discussed by the two men at such length, but Fahy refused; he wanted the plan submitted to his full committee. When Johnson received the plan he did not consult the committee at all, although he briefly referred it to the acting chairman of the Personnel Policy Board, who interposed no objection.[14-87]

[Footnote 14-86: Memo, SA for SecDef, 30 Sep 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, CSGPA 291.2; DOD, Off of Pub Info, Press Release 256-49, 30 Sep 49, FC file.]

[Footnote 14-87: Memo, Kenworthy for Cmte, 27 Sep 49, sub: Army's Reply to Secretary Johnson, Fahy Papers, Truman Library; Note, handwritten and signed McCrea, attached to memo, SA for SecDef, 30 Sep 49; Memo, Thompson for Leva, 3 Oct 49, sub: Army Policy of Equality of Treatment and Opportunity, CD 30-1-4; both in SecDef files.]

It is not difficult to understand Johnson's reasons for ignoring (p. 365) the President's committee. He had been forced to endure public criticism over the protracted negotiations between the Army and the committee. Among liberal elements on Capitol Hill, his position—that his directive and the service replies made legislation to prohibit segregation in the services unnecessary—was obviously being compromised by the lack of an acceptable Army response.[14-88] In a word, the argument over civil rights in the armed forces had become a political liability for Louis Johnson, and he wanted it out of the way. Glossing over the Army's truculence, Johnson blamed the committee and its recommendations for his problem, and when his frontal assault on the committee failed—Kenworthy reported that the secretary tried to have the committee disbanded—he had to devise another approach.[14-89] The Army's new proposal, a more reasonable-sounding document than its predecessor, provided him with a convenient opportunity. Why not quickly approve the program, thereby presenting the committee with a fait accompli and leaving the President with little excuse for prolonging the civil rights negotiations?

[Footnote 14-88: Ltr, SecDef to Congressman Vinson, 7 Jul 49; Memo, Lanham for Reid, 29 Mar 49; both in PPB files.]

[Footnote 14-89: Ltr, Kenworthy to Nichols, 28 Jul 53, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]

Unfortunately for Johnson the gambit failed. While Fahy admitted that the Army's newest proposal was an improvement, for several reasons he could not accept it. The assignment of black specialists to white units was a key part of the committee's program, and despite Gray's private assurances that specialists would be integrated, Fahy was not prepared to accept the Army's "equivocal" language on this subject. There was also the issue of the quota, still very much alive between the committee and the Army. The committee was bound, furthermore, to resent being ignored in the approval process. Fahy and his associates had been charged by the President with advising the services on equality of treatment and opportunity, and they were determined to be heard.[14-90] Fahy informed the White House that the committee would review the Army's proposal in an extraordinary meeting. He asked that the President meanwhile refrain from comment.[14-91]

[Footnote 14-90: Memo, Kenworthy to Cmte, 27 Sep 49, sub: Army's Reply to Secretary Johnson, and Ltr, Kenworthy to Joseph Evans, 30 Sep 49, both in Fahy Papers, Truman Library; Memo, Worthington Thompson for Leva, 3 Oct 49, sub: Army Policy of Equality of Treatment and Opportunity, SecDef files; Ltr, Kenworthy to Nichols, 28 Jul 53, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]

[Footnote 14-91: Memo for Rcd, probably written by Philleo Nash, 3 Oct 49, Nash Collection, Truman Library.]

The committee's stand received support from the black press and numerous national civil rights organizations, all of which excoriated the Army's position.[14-92] David K. Niles, the White House adviser on racial matters, warned President Truman about the rising controversy and predicted that the committee would again reject the Army's proposal. He advised the President to tell the press that Johnson's news release was merely a "progress report," that it was not final, and that the committee was continuing its investigation.[14-93] The President did just that, adding: "Eventually we will reach, I (p. 366) hope, what we contemplated in the beginning. You can't do it all at once. The progress report was a good report, and it isn't finished yet."[14-94] And lest his purpose remain unclear, the President declared that his aim was the racial integration of the Army.

[Footnote 14-92: See Los Angeles Star Review, October 6, 1949; Afro-American, October 8, 1949; Washington Post, October 6, 1949; Pittsburgh Courier, Octobers, 1949; Norfolk Journal and Guide, October 15, 1949; New York Amsterdam News, October 15, 1949.]

[Footnote 14-93: Ltr, Niles to President, 5 Oct 49, Nash Collection, Truman Library.]

[Footnote 14-94: News Conference, 6 Oct 49, as quoted in Public Papers of the President: Harry S. Truman, 1949, p. 501.]

The President's statement signaled a victory for the committee; its extent became apparent only when the Army tried to issue a new circular, revising its Gillem Board policy along the lines of the outline plan approved by Johnson on 30 September. During the weeks of protracted negotiations that followed, the committee clearly remained in control, its power derived basically from its willingness to have the differences between the committee and the Army publicized and the reluctance of the White House to have it so. The attitudes toward publicity were already noticeable when, on 11 October, Fahy suggested to Truman some possible solutions to the impasse between the committee and the Army. The Secretary of Defense could issue a supplementary statement on the Army's assignment policy, the committee could release its recommendations to the press, or the Army and the committee could resume discussions.[14-95]

[Footnote 14-95: Memo, Fahy for President, 11 Oct 49, FC file.]

President Truman ordered his military aide to read the committee's 11 October suggestion and "then take [it] up with Johnson."[14-96] As a result the Secretary of Defense retired from the controversy. Reminding Gray through intermediaries that he had approved the Army's plan in outline form, Johnson declared that it was "inappropriate" for him to approve the plan's publication as an Army circular as the Army had requested.[14-97] About the same time, Niles informed the Army that any revision of Circular 124 would have to be submitted to the White House before publication, and he candidly admitted that presidential approval would depend on the views of the Fahy Committee.[14-98] Meanwhile, his assistant, Philleo Nash, predicting that the committee would win both the assignment and quota arguments, persuaded Fahy to postpone any public statement until after the Army's revised circular had been reviewed by the committee.[14-99]

[Footnote 14-96: Penciled Note, signed HST, on Memo, Niles for President, Secretary's File (PSF), Truman Library.]

[Footnote 14-97: Memo, Maj Gen Levin C. Allen, Exec Secy, SecDef, for SA, 14 Oct 49; Memo, Vice Adm John McCrea, Dir of Staff, PPB, for Allen, 25 Oct 49; both in CD 30-1-4, SecDef files.]

[Footnote 14-98: Memo for Rcd, Karl Bendetsen, Spec Consultant to SA, 28 Nov 49, SA files; Ltr, Kenworthy to Fahy, 22 Nov 49, and Memo, Kenworthy for Fahy Cmte, 29 Oct 49, sub: Background to Proposed Letter to Gray; both in Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]

[Footnote 14-99: Ltr, Fahy to Cmte, 17 Nov 49, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]

Chairman Fahy was fully aware of the leverage these actions gave his committee, although he and his associates now had few illusions about the speedy end to the contest. "I know from the best authority within P&A," Kenworthy warned the committee, that the obstructionists in Army Personnel hoped to see the committee submit final recommendations—"what its recommendations are they don't much care"—and then disband. Until the committee disbanded, its opponents would try to block any real change in Army policy.[14-100] Kenworthy offered in evidence the current controversy over the Army's instructions to its field commanders. These instructions, a copy of the outline plan (p. 367) approved by Secretary Johnson, had been sent to the commanders by The Adjutant General on 1 October as "additional policies" pending a revision of Circular 124.[14-101] Included in the message, of course, was Gray's order to open all military occupational specialties to Negroes; but when some commanders, on the basis of their interpretation of the message, began integrating black specialists in white units, officials in the Personnel and Administration and the Organization and Training Divisions dispatched a second message on 27 October specifically forbidding such action "except on Department of Army orders."[14-102] Negroes would continue to be authorized for assignment to black units, the message explained, and to "Negro spaces in T/D [overhead] units." In effect, the Army staff was ordering commanders to interpret the secretary's plan in its narrowest sense, blocking any possibility of broadening the range of black assignments.

[Footnote 14-100: Memo, Kenworthy for Cmte, 29 Oct 49, sub: Background to Proposed Letter to Gray, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]

[Footnote 14-101: Msg, TAG to Chief, AFF, et al., WCL 45586, 011900Z Oct 49, copy in AG 220.3.]

[Footnote 14-102: Memo, D/PA for TAG, 25 Oct 49, sub: Assignment of Negro Enlisted Personnel, with attached Memo for Rcd, Col John H. Riepe, Chief, Manpower Control Gp, D/PA; Memo, Deputy Dir, PA, for Gen Brooks (Dir of PA), 3 Nov 49, same sub; Msg, TAG to Chief, AFF, et al., WCL 20682, 27 Oct 49. All in CSGPA 291.2 (25 Oct 49).]

Kenworthy was able to turn this incident to the committee's advantage. He made a practice of never locking his Pentagon office door nor his desk drawer. He knew that Negroes, both civilian and military, worked in the message centers, and he suspected that if any hanky-panky was afoot they would discover it and he would be anonymously apprised of it. A few days after the dispatch of the second message, Kenworthy opened his desk drawer to find a copy. For the first and only time, he later explained, he broke his self-imposed rule of relying on negotiations between the military and the committee and its staff in camera. He laid both messages before a long-time friend of his, the editor of the Washington Post's editorial page.[14-103] Thus delivered to the press, the second message brought on another round of accusations, corrections, and headlines to the effect that "The Brass Gives Gray the Run-Around." Kenworthy was able to denounce the incident as a "step backward" that even violated the Gillem Board policy by allocating "Negro spaces" in overhead units. The Army staff's second message nullified the committee's recommendations since they depended ultimately on the unlimited assignment of black specialists. The message demonstrated very well, Kenworthy told the committee, that careful supervision of the Army's racial policy would be necessary.[14-104] Some newspapers were less charitable. The Pittsburgh Courier charged that the colonel blamed for the release of the second message had been made the "goat" in a case that involved far more senior officials, and the Washington Post claimed that the message "vitiates" even the limited improvements outlined in the Army's plan as approved by Secretary Johnson. The paper called on Secretary Gray to assert himself in the case.[14-105]

[Footnote 14-103: Memo, Kenworthy for Chief of Military History, 13 Oct 76, CMH.]

[Footnote 14-104: Idem for Cmte, 29 Oct 49, sub: Instructions to Commanding Generals on New Army Policy, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]

[Footnote 14-105: Lem Graves, Jr. (Washington correspondent of the Pittsburgh Courier), "A Colonel Takes the Rap," Pittsburgh Courier, October 29, 1949; Washington Post, November 3, 1949.]

A furious secretary, learning of the second message from the press (p. 368) stories, did enter the case. Branding the document a violation of his announced policy, he had it rescinded and, publicizing a promise made earlier to the committee, announced that qualified black specialists would be assigned to some white units.[14-106] At the same time Gray was not prepared to admit that the incident demonstrated how open his plan was to evasion, just as he refused to admit that his rescinding of the errant message represented a change in policy. He would continue, in effect, the plan approved by the Secretary of Defense on 30 September, he told Fahy.[14-107]

[Footnote 14-106: DOD, Off of Pub Info, Release 400-49, 3 Nov 49, FC file.]

[Footnote 14-107: Ltr, SA to Fahy, 17 Nov 49, FC file.]

The Army staff's draft revision of the Gillem Board circular, sent to the committee on 25 November, reflected Gray's 30 September plan.[14-108] In short, when it emerged from its journey through the various Army staff agencies, the proposed revision still contained none of the committee's key recommendations. It continued the severe restrictions on the assignment of Negroes who had specialty training; it specifically retained the numerical quota; and, with several specific exceptions, it carefully preserved the segregation of Army life.[14-109] Actually, the proposed revision amounted to little more than a repetition of the Gillem Board policy with minor modifications designed to make it easier to carry out. Fahy quickly warned the Deputy Director of Personnel and Administration that there was no chance of its winning the committee's approval.[14-110]

[Footnote 14-108: Ltr, Bendetsen to Fahy, 25 Nov 49; Memo for Rcd, Kenworthy, 28 Nov 49; both in Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]

[Footnote 14-109: Army Draft No. 1 of Revised Circular 124, 16 Nov 49, FC file.]

[Footnote 14-110: Ltr, Fahy to Maj Gen C. E. Byers, 30 Nov 49, FC file.]

Assignments

The quota and assignments issues remained the center of controversy between the Army and the committee. Although Fahy was prepared to postpone a decision on the quota while negotiations continued, he was unwilling to budge on the assignments issue. As the committee had repeatedly emphasized, the question of open, integrated assignment of trained Negroes was at the heart of its program. Without it the opening of Army schools and military occupational specialties would be meaningless and the intent of Executive Order 9981 frustrated.

At first glance it would seem that the revision of Circular 124 supported the assignment of Negroes to white units, as indeed Secretary Gray had recently promised. But this was not really the case, as Kenworthy explained to the committee. The Army had always made a distinction between specialists, men especially recruited for critically needed jobs, and specialties, those military occupations for which soldiers were routinely trained in Army schools. The draft revision did not refer to this second and far larger category and was intended to provide only for the placement of the rare black specialist in white units. The document as worded even limited (p. 369) the use of Negroes in overhead units. Only those with skills considered appropriate by the personnel office—that is, those who possessed a specialty either inappropriate in a black unit or in excess of its needs—would be considered for racially mixed overhead units.[14-111]

[Footnote 14-111: Memo, Kenworthy for President's Cmte, 18 Nov 49, sub: Successor Policy to WD Cir 124; idem for Fahy, 28 Nov 49, sub: Revised WD Cir 124; both in Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]

Fahy was determined to have the Army's plan modified, and furthermore he had learned during the past few weeks how to get it done. On 9 December Kenworthy telephoned Philleo Nash at the White House to inform him of the considerable sentiment in the committee for publicizing the whole affair and read to him the draft of a press statement prepared by Fahy. As Fahy expected, the White House wanted to avoid publicity; the President, through Nash, assured the committee that the issues of assignment and quota were still under discussion. Nash suggested that instead of a public statement the committee prepare a document for the Army and the White House explaining what principles and procedures were demanded by the presidential order. In his opinion, Nash assured Kenworthy, the White House would order the Army to meet the committee's recommendations.[14-112]

[Footnote 14-112: Memo for Rcd, Kenworthy, 9 Dec 49, sub: Telephone Conversation With Nash, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]

White House pressure undoubtedly played a major role in the resolution of the assignment issue. When on 14 December 1949 the committee presented the Army and the President with its comments on the Army's proposed revision of Circular 124, it took the first step toward what was to be a rapid agreement on black assignments. At the same time it would be a mistake to discount the effectiveness of reasonable men of good will discussing their very real differences in an effort to reach a consensus. There is considerable evidence that when Fahy met on 27 December with Secretary Gray and General J. Lawton Collins, the Chief of Staff, he was able to convince them that the committee's position on the assignment of black graduates of specialist schools was right and inevitable.[14-113]

[Footnote 14-113: Interv, Nichols with Fahy. J. Lawton Collins became Chief of Staff of the Army on 1 August 1949, succeeding Omar Bradley who stepped up to the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.]

While neither Gray nor Collins could even remotely be described as social reformers, both were pragmatic leaders, prepared to accept changes in Army tradition.[14-114] Collins, unlike his immediate predecessors, was not so much concerned with finding the Army in the vanguard of American social practices as he was in determining that its racial practices guaranteed a more efficient organization. While he wanted to retain the numerical quota, lest the advantages of an Army career attract so large a number of Negroes that a serious racial imbalance would result, he was willing to accept a substantive revision of the Gillem Board policy.

[Footnote 14-114: Intervs, Nichols with Gray and Fahy, and author with Collins.]

Gray was perhaps more cautious than Collins. Confessing later that he had never considered the question of equal opportunity until Fahy brought it to his attention, Gray began with a limited view of the executive order—the Army must eliminate racial discrimination, (p. 370) not promote racial integration. In their meeting on 27 December Fahy was able to convince Gray that the former was impossible without the latter. According to Kenworthy, Gray demonstrated an "open and unbiased" view of the problem throughout all discussions.[14-115]

[Footnote 14-115: Ltr, Kenworthy to Gray, 20 Jul 50, FC file; Intervs, Nichols with Gray, Davenport, and Fahy.]



The trouble was, as Roy Davenport later noted, Gordon Gray was a lawyer, not a personnel expert, and he failed to grasp the full implications of the Army staff's recommendations.[14-116] Davenport was speaking from firsthand knowledge because Gray, after belatedly learning of his experience and influence with the committee, sent for him. Politely but explicitly Davenport told Gray that the staff officers who were advising him and writing the memos and directives to which he was signing his name had deceived him. Gray was at first annoyed and incredulous; after Davenport finally convinced him, he was angry. Kenworthy, years later, wrote that the Gray-Davenport discussion was decisive in changing Gray's mind on the assignment issue and was of great help to the Fahy Committee.[14-117]

[Footnote 14-116: Interv, author with Davenport, 31 Oct 71.]

[Footnote 14-117: Memo, Kenworthy for Chief of Military History, 13 Oct 76, CMH.]

Fahy reduced the whole problem to the case of one qualified black soldier denied a job because of color and pictured the loss to the Army and the country, eloquently pleading with Gray and Collins at the 27 December meeting to try the committee's way. "I can't say you won't have problems," Fahy concluded, "but try it." Gray resisted at first because "this would mean the complete end of segregation," but unable to deny the logic of Fahy's arguments he agreed to try.[14-118] There were compromises on both sides. When Collins pointed out some of the administrative difficulties that could come from the "mandatory" language recommended by the committee, Fahy said that the policy should be administered "with latitude." To that end he promised to suggest some changes in wording that would produce "a policy with some play in the joints." The conferees also agreed that the quota issue should be downplayed while the parties continued their discussions on that subject.[14-119]

[Footnote 14-118: Memo for Rcd, Karl R. Bendetsen, Spec Asst to SA, 27 Dec 49, sub: Conference With Judge Charles Fahy, SA files. Intervs, Nichols with Gray and Fahy, author with Fahy, and Blumenson with Fahy.]

[Footnote 14-119: Memo for Rcd, Bendetsen, 27 Dec 49, SA files; Ltr, Fahy to Cmte, 27 Dec 49, Fahy papers, Truman Library.]

Agreement followed rapidly on the heels of the meeting of the principals. Roy Davenport presented the committee members with the final draft of the Army proposal and urged that it be accepted as (p. 371) "the furthest and most hopeful they could get."[14-120] Lester Granger, Davenport later reported, was the first to say he would accept, with Fahy and the rest following suit,[14-121] and on 16 January 1950 the Army issued Special Regulation 600-629-1, Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army, with the committee's blessing.

[Footnote 14-120: Interv, Nichols with Davenport.]

[Footnote 14-121: Ltr, Kenworthy to Nichols, 29 Jul 53, in Nichols Collection, CMH; Interv, Nichols with Davenport.]



Fahy reported to Truman that the new Army policy was consistent with the executive order. Its paragraphs on assignments spelled out the principle long advocated by the committee: "Negro manpower possessing appropriate skills and qualifications will be utilized in accordance with such skills and qualifications, and will be assigned to any ... unit without regard to race or color." Adding substance to this declaration, the Army also announced that a list of critical specialties in which vacancies existed would be published periodically and ordered major commanders to assign Negroes who possessed those specialties to fill the vacancies without regard to race. The first such list was published at the same time as the new regulation. The Army had taken a significant step, Fahy told the President, toward the realization of equal treatment and opportunity for all soldiers.[14-122]

[Footnote 14-122: Memo, Fahy for President, 16 Jan 50, FC file; SR 600-629-1, 16 Jan 50; DOD, Off of Pub Info, Release 64-50, 16 Jan 50. The special regulation was circulated worldwide on the day of the issue; see Memo, D/P&A to TAG, 16 Jan 50, WDGPA 291.2.]

Secretary of Defense Johnson was also optimistic, but he warned Gordon Gray that many complex problems remained and asked the Army for periodic reports. His request only emphasized the fact that the Army's new regulation lacked the machinery for monitoring compliance with its provisions for integration. As the history of the Gillem Board era demonstrated, any attempt to change the Army's traditions demanded not only exact definition of the intermediate steps but also establishment of a responsible authority to enforce compliance.