Chapter 14: (p. 343) (1)

The Fahy Committee Versus the Department of Defense

Given James Forrestal's sympathy for integration, considerable cooperation could be expected between members of his department and the Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, better known as the Fahy Committee. In the wake of the committee's establishment, Forrestal proposed that the service secretaries assign an assistant secretary to coordinate his department's dealings with the group and a ranking black officer from each service be assigned to advise the assistant secretaries.[14-1] His own office promised to supply the committee with vital documentation, and his manpower experts offered to testify. The service secretaries agreed to follow suit.

[Footnote 14-1: Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 21 Oct 48,
copy in Fahy Committee file, CMH [hereafter cited
as FC file]. The Center of Military History has
retained an extensive collection of significant
primary materials pertaining to the Fahy Committee
and its dealings with the Department of Defense.
While most of the original documents are in the
Charles Fahy Papers and the Papers of the
President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and
Opportunity in the Armed Services at the Harry S.
Truman Library or in the National Archives, this
study will cite the CMH collection when possible.]

Willing to cooperate, Forrestal still wanted to chart his own course. Both he and his successor, Louis A. Johnson, made it quite clear that as a senior cabinet officer the Secretary of Defense was accountable in all matters to the President alone. The Fahy Committee might report on the department's racial practices and suggest changes, but the development of policy was his prerogative. Both men dealt directly with the committee from time to time, but their directives to the services on the formulation of race policy were developed independently of the White House group.[14-2] Underscoring this independent attitude, Marx Leva reminded the service secretaries that the members of the Personnel Policy Board were to work with the representatives of their respective staffs on racial matters. They were not expected "to assist Fahy."[14-3]

[Footnote 14-2: Ltrs, James Forrestal to Fahy, 26 Mar
49, and Louis Johnson to Fahy, 18 Apr 49; both in
FC file. See also Ltr, Thomas R. Reid to R. M.
Dalfiume, 12 Feb 65, copy in CMH.]

[Footnote 14-3: Min, Cmte of Four Secretaries Mtg, 26
Oct 48, Office of OSD Historian. The Committee of
the Four Secretaries was an informal body composed
of the Secretary of Defense or his representative
and the secretaries of the three armed services.]

At the same time Secretary of Defense Forrestal was aware that the interests of a committee enjoying White House support could not be ignored. His attempt to develop a new racial policy was probably in part an effort to forestall committee criticism and in part a wish to draw up a policy that would satisfy the committee without really doing much to change things. After all, such a departmental attitude toward committees, both congressional and presidential, was fairly normal. Faced with the conflicting racial policies of the Air Force and Army, Forrestal agreed to let the services present their separate (p. 344) programs to the Fahy Committee, but he wanted to develop a race policy applicable to all the services.[14-4] Some of his subordinates debated the wisdom of this decision, arguing that the President had assigned that task to the Fahy Committee, but they were overruled. Forrestal ordered the newly created Personnel Policy Board to undertake, simultaneously with the committee, a study of the department's racial policy. The board was to concentrate on "breaking down the problem," as Forrestal put it, into its component parts and trying to arrive quietly at areas of agreement on a uniform policy that could be held in readiness until the Fahy Committee made its report.[14-5]

[Footnote 14-4: Min, War Council Mtg, 12 Jan 49,
Office of OSD Historian; Memo, Secy of War Council
for SA et al., 13 Jan 49, sub: Significant Action
of the Special Meeting of the War Council on 12
January 1949, OSD 291.2. The War Council,
established by Section 210 of the National Security
Act of 1947, consisted of the Secretary of Defense
as chairman with power of decision, the service
secretaries, and the military chiefs of the Army,
Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.]

[Footnote 14-5: Memo, Thomas R. Reid, Chmn, PPB, for
Worthington Thompson, OSD, 15 Feb 49, sub: Meeting
of Committee of Four, 10 A.M. Tuesday--15 February,
FC file.]

The Personnel Policy Board, established by Forrestal to help regulate the military and civilian policies of his large department, was the logical place to prepare a departmental racial policy.[14-6] But could a group basically interservice in nature be expected to develop a forceful, independent racial policy for all the services along the lines Forrestal appeared to be following? It seemed unlikely, for at their first meeting the board members agreed that any policy developed must be "satisfactory to the three services."[14-7]

[Footnote 14-6: Forrestal signed an interim directive
appointing members of the board on 22 February
1949. Composed of a civilian chairman and an under
secretary or assistant secretary from each service,
the board was to have a staff of personnel experts
under a director, an officer of flag rank,
appointed by the chairman; see NME Press Releases,
28 Dec 48, and 1 Apr 49.]

[Footnote 14-7: Min PPB Mtg, 26 Feb 49, FC file.]

Undeterred by members' calling for more investigation and debate before the board prepared a common policy, Chairman Thomas R. Reid and his chief of staff, Army Brig. Gen. Charles T. Lanham, acted.[14-8] On 28 February they drafted a directive for the Secretary of Defense that would abolish all racial quotas and establish uniform standards of induction for service which in times of emergency would include provisions for the apportionment of enlistees both qualitatively and quantitatively. Moreover, all black enlistees would be given the opportunity to serve as individuals in integrated units. The services would be completely integrated by 1 July 1950. To ease the change, Reid and Lanham would in the interim regulate the number of Negroes in integrated units, allowing not less than four men and not more than 10 percent in a company-size unit. Enlisted men could choose to serve under officers of their own race.[14-9]

[Footnote 14-8: Memo, Col J. F. Cassidy, PPB, for Dir,
PPB Staff, 25 Feb 49, sub: Policies of the Three
Departments With Reference to Negro Personnel, FC
file.]

[Footnote 14-9: PPB, Draft (Reid and Lanham), Proposed
Directive for the Armed Forces for the Period 1
July 1949 to 1 July 1950, 28 Feb 49, FC file.]

Favorably received in the secretary's office, the proposed directive came too late for speedy enactment. On 3 March Forrestal resigned, and although Leva hoped the directive could be issued before Forrestal's actual departure, "in view of his long-standing interest in this field," Forrestal was obviously reluctant to commit his successor (p. 345) to so drastic a course.[14-10] With a final bow to his belief in service autonomy, Forrestal asked Reid and Lanham to submit their proposal to the service secretaries for review.[14-11] The secretaries approved the idea of a unified policy in principle, but each had very definite and individual views on what that policy should contain and how it should be carried out. Denied firm direction from the ailing Forrestal, Reid and Lanham could do little against service opposition. Their proposal was quietly tabled while the board continued its search for an acceptable unified policy.

[Footnote 14-10: Note, Leva thru Ohly to Buck Lanham,
attached to Draft of Proposed Directive cited in n.
9.]

[Footnote 14-11: Memo, Chmn, PPB, for John Ohly,
Assistant to SecDef, 15 Mar 49; Revised Min, PPB
Mtg, 18 Mar 49; both in FC file.]

Perhaps it was just as well, for the Reid-Lanham draft had serious defects. It failed to address the problems of qualitative imbalance in the peacetime services, probably in deference to Forrestal's recent rejection of the Army's call for a fair distribution of high-scoring enlistees. While the proposal encouraged special training for Negroes, it also limited their assignment to a strict 10 percent quota in any unit. The result would have been an administrative nightmare, with trained men in excess of the 10 percent quota assigned to other, nonspecialty duties. As one manpower expert later admitted, "you ran the real chance of haying black engineers and the like pushing wheelbarrows."[14-12]

[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.]