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.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Ma.s.sachusetts, 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.
(Ma.s.s.), 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sing 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, pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sage of the bill.[12-55] In the end Congress rejected both amendments, pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sure 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 a.s.sumed, 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 doc.u.ment. 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 a.s.st 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.]