Dissention in the Ranks—Dissent Within U.S. Civil-Military Relations During the Truman Administration: A Historical Approach

by David A. “DAM” Martin

B.A. in History, May 1989, Virginia Military Institute M.A. in Military Studies—Land Warfare, June 2002, American Military University M.B.A., June 2014, Strayer University

A Dissertation submitted to

The Faculty of The Graduate School of Education and Human Development of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education

January 19, 2018

Dissertation directed by

Andrea J. Casey Associate Professor of Human and Organizational Learning The Graduate School of Education and Human Development of the George Washington

University certifies that David A. “DAM” Martin has passed the final examination for the degree of Doctor of Education as of September 22, 2017. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation.

Dissention in the Ranks—Dissent Within U.S. Civil-Military Relations During the Truman Administration: A Historical Approach

David A. “DAM” Martin

Dissertation Research Committee:

Andrea J. Casey, Associate Professor of Human and Organizational Learning, Dissertation Director

David R. Schwandt, Professor Emeritus of Human and Organizational Learning, Committee Member

Stamatina McGrath, Adjunct Instructor, Department of History, George Mason University, Committee Member

ii

© Copyright 2018 by David A. Martin All rights reserved

iii Dedication

Dedicated to those who have Served honorably, Dissented when the cause was just, and paid dearly for it.

iv Acknowledgments

I want to thank my dissertation chair, Dr. Andrea Casey, for her outstanding advice and counsel throughout this educative journey. Thank you to my dissertation committee member, Dr. Stamatina McGrath, who provided incredible methodological support throughout the dissertation process when I wanted to break from the accepted norms. Who knew that a Byzantinist could have such influence in a study of dissent in modern civil-military relations? Dr. David Schwandt, fellow veteran, packed more bang for the buck per guiding word than any professor I have ever met in my 3 years with the

Executive Leadership Doctoral Program at The George Washington University. Thanks also to the outstanding ELP support staff who never seem to get enough recognition and to the librarians who mailed book after book to my home.

I could not have completed this task without the assistance provided through the

Veterans Administration GI Bill Chapter 33 and GWU’s participation in the Yellow

Ribbon program. Thank you for your support to our nation’s veterans. I see now why

GWU historically ranks as one of the more veteran-friendly institutions of higher learning.

Thanks also to my Army family and the chain of command at the 97th Training

Brigade, U.S. Army Command, and General Staff Officers College Instructor Brigade, for providing me the maneuvering room to finish the dissertation when I could have been working on something else.

Finally, to my family: my parents, my wife Stephanie, and children Declan and

Katherine. Families never get enough recognition for their sacrifice. (Even our dog

Reagan chipped in, spending long hours under my chair as I typed draft after draft.) Love you all. Lesson learned: dissent is not futile, regardless of what Dad says!

v Abstract of the Dissertation

Dissention in the Ranks—Dissent Within U.S. Civil-Military Relations During the Truman Administration: A Historical Approach

Dissent has always existed in American civil-military relations since General

George Washington and his staff dissented to the Continental Congress over funding the

Continental Army. More recently, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called for more understanding of dissent, but how dissent occurs is little understood in civil-military contexts. Organizational theorists are convinced dissent is ultimately healthy to all organizations, even civil-military ones.

This study asked how dissent occurs within the civil-military relationship in positive, historical dissent events. A historiographical approach examined the chronology of dissent over desegregation of the U.S. Army before, during, and after President

Truman issued Executive Order 9981, declaring “equality of treatment and equal opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin” (13 Fed. Reg. 4313, July 28, 1948). The U.S. Army continued to dissent

2 years after the order came out.

Conflict theory holds conflict as influential in dissent (Coser, 1957). Hierarchy and power play important roles in dissent (Kassing, 1997, 1998, 2012, 2013). Lamb’s

(2013) historical discourse analysis offered a high-level dissent analysis in civil-military relations from 1945 to 1950.

The study found that dissent occurred because of conflict, yet conflict also resulted from dissent. Previous dissent research has concerned itself with dissent up the hierarchy, but this research discovered that upward, lateral, and outward dissent occurred

vi simultaneously. Power patterns emerged as groups in dissent displayed, battled for, and consolidated power before a weakened, final engagement marked the terminus of open dissent. Dissent reverberated outward from political and military groups in conflict, embroiling the social group.

This study contributes to dissent theory, demonstrating the influence of hierarchies and power and supporting theoretical research that dissent happens over time.

Previous dissent research focused on why dissent happens. This study provided additional insight into how dissent happens, advancing civil-military theory and concluding that civil-military relations are composed of not just civilian and military authority, but a tripartite genus of political, military, and social groups. The research supports dissent as healthy to U.S. civil-military relations.

vii Table of Contents

Page

Dedication ...... iv

Acknowledgments...... v

Abstract of the Dissertation ...... vi

List of Figures ...... xiv

List of Tables ...... xv

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms ...... xvi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Overview ...... 1

Statement of the Problem ...... 6

Purpose of the Study ...... 9

Research Question ...... 10

Statement of Potential Significance ...... 11

Conceptual Framework ...... 14

Summary of the Methodology ...... 17

Limitations ...... 19

Historical Background ...... 21

Historical Frame—Enter Truman ...... 21

Truman and Negro Equality in Civil Rights ...... 23

Executive Order Defined: A Powerful Tool ...... 25

The Negro Minority in the Military ...... 26

Executive Order Implemented ...... 27

viii Truman’s Relations with the Military ...... 28

Definitions of Key Terms ...... 30

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 33

Introduction ...... 33

Methods of the Literature Review...... 34

Chapter Organization ...... 40

Dissent...... 42

Origins of Seminal Dissent Research ...... 42

Definition in Research Literature ...... 45

Hierarchy and Dissent ...... 49

Definition ...... 49

Feedback and the Hierarchy Principle ...... 51

Measuring Dissent in Hierarchies ...... 54

The Social Aspect of Dissent in a Hierarchy ...... 57

Power and Dissent...... 60

Definition ...... 60

Supervisory Power and Dissent ...... 63

Conflict and Dissent ...... 66

Conflict Definition ...... 66

Conflict in Hierarchy and Power ...... 68

View of Conflict and Dissent as Social Constructs ...... 69

View of Conflict as Not Social ...... 71

The Interplay of Conflict and Dissent ...... 72

ix Practical Literature: Civil-Military Relations ...... 73

Civil-Military Definition ...... 73

Historical Underpinnings of Civil-Military Dissent ...... 75

Power in Civil-Military Relations ...... 77

Hierarchy in Civil-Military Relations ...... 82

Historiography Approach to Research ...... 86

Inferences for the Current Study ...... 87

Theoretical Framework for the Current Study ...... 89

CHAPTER 3: METHODS ...... 92

Research Question ...... 94

Research Design...... 94

Theoretical Perspective and Epistemology ...... 95

Historiography and Methodological Approach ...... 98

Site Selection—Periodicity (1945-1950) ...... 101

Data Collection/Selection of Evidence ...... 103

Analysis of Evidence ...... 107

Legitimacy...... 109

Actions ...... 110

Meanings ...... 111

Limitations of the Study...... 112

Ethics...... 113

Summary ...... 116

x CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS ...... 117

Overview ...... 117

Desegregation Historical Contexts ...... 118

Presentation of Evidence ...... 120

Justification for a Five-Part Chronology ...... 121

Findings for Part 1: Dissent in World War II Segregation Policy (November 1940—

September 1945) ...... 129

Findings for Part 2: Postwar Dissent Begins (October 1945–February 1948) ...... 135

Findings for Part 3: Executive Order 9981, Dissent Blooms (March 1948–

January 1949) ...... 146

Overview ...... 146

Historical Context ...... 147

Presentation of Evidence ...... 149

Findings for Part 4: Army of One—Army as Lone Dissenter (February 1949–

January 1950) ...... 158

Overview ...... 158

Historical Context ...... 161

Presentation of Evidence ...... 161

Findings for Part 5: Dissent Ends, War Begins (January 1950–June 1950) ...... 182

Overview ...... 182

Historical Context ...... 183

Presentation of Evidence ...... 184

Historical Evidence—Epilogue ...... 188

xi Summary of Evidence ...... 189

CHAPTER 5: ANALYSIS OF THEMES ...... 191

Contextual Features of Conflict ...... 191

Power-Hierarchy Analytical Indicators ...... 194

State Level of Analysis ...... 196

Field of Action 1: Law-Making Procedures...... 196

Field of Action 2: Political Executive/Administration ...... 199

Field of Action 3: Political Control ...... 202

Field of Action 4: Media/Formation of Public Opinion ...... 205

Private Level of Analysis ...... 209

Field of Action 5: Party-Internal Development of Informed Opinion ...... 209

Field of Action 6: Formation of Working Relationships, Common Goals ...... 212

Field of Action 7: Formation of Personal Relationships ...... 216

Summary: Dissent Theory and Civil-Military Relations ...... 216

CHAPTER 6: INTERPRETATION OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS,

RECOMMENDATIONS ...... 218

Summary of Findings ...... 219

Interpretation of Findings ...... 220

Conflict ...... 221

Dissent as Occurring Over Time—Upward, Lateral, and Displaced (Outward) ...... 225

Power Patterns Emergent in Dissent ...... 229

Dissent as Occurring Simultaneously, Across Levels...... 245

Civil-Military Relations and the Social Group ...... 248

xii Conclusions ...... 249

Implications...... 252

Implications for Theory...... 252

Implications for Civil-Military Practice ...... 258

Recommendations for Future Research ...... 260

Conclusion ...... 263

REFERENCES ...... 265

APPENDIX A: Key Players in Dissent Regarding Desegregation,

September 1945–June 1950 ...... 285

APPENDIX B: Executive Order 9981...... 286

APPENDIX C: Clark Clifford Letter to Kenneth Royall, 2 September 1948 ...... 287

APPENDIX D: Subjectivity Statement ...... 289

xiii List of Figures

Page

1.1. Conceptual Framework ...... 16

2.1. Literature Review Map ...... 41

3.1. The “Sweet Spot” of Civil-Military Relations ...... 105

3.2. Meaning Indicator: Dissent-Historical Discourse Analytical Methods ...... 111

4.1. Draft of the Gillem Board Report Showing Its Declassification ...... 137

4.2. Clifford’s Letter to Royall, 10 August 1948 ...... 153

4.3. Royall’s Letter to Truman, 17 September 1949...... 154

4.4. Truman’s Comments on Fahy’s Letter and “Interim Report for the President” ..177

4.5. Newspaper Clipping, “Army Runaround,” 3 November 1949 ...... 179

4.6. Truman’s Letter to Ives, 13 December 1949 ...... 180

5.1. Historical Discourse Power-Hierarchy Analysis ...... 195

6.1. Revised Conceptual Framework ...... 257

xiv List of Tables

Page

1.1. Key Terms ...... 30

3.1. Dissent Dimension ...... 104

3.2. Dissent Research Priority ...... 104

3.3. Institutional Perspectives ...... 108

4.1. Abbreviated Timeline for Dissent on Desegregation...... 123

4.2. Historical Evidence/Desegregation Timeline Crosswalk ...... 125

4.3. Part 1: Historical Evidence/Desegregation Timeline ...... 129

4.4. Part 2: Historical Evidence/Desegregation Timeline ...... 136

4.5. Part 3: Historical Evidence/Desegregation Timeline ...... 146

4.6. Part 4: Historical Evidence/Desegregation Timeline ...... 159

4.7. Part 5: Historical Evidence/Desegregation Timeline ...... 183

5.1. Field of Action 1: Law-Making Procedure Analysis ...... 197

5.2. Field of Action 2: Political Executive/Administration Procedure Analysis ...... 200

5.3. Field of Action 3: Political Control Procedure Analysis ...... 202

5.4. Field of Action 4: Media/Formation of Public Opinion Analysis ...... 206

5.5. Field of Action 5: Party-Internal Development of Informed Opinion

Analysis...... 210

5.6. Field of Action 6: Formation of Working Relationships, Common

Goals Analysis ...... 213

xv List of Abbreviations and Acronyms

(A)GCT (Army) General Classification Test

EO Executive Order

NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

ODS Organizational Dissent Scale

SecAF Secretary of the Air Force

SecArmy Secretary of the Army

SecNav Secretary of the Navy

SecDef Secretary of Defense

SecWar Secretary of War

UDS Upward Dissent Scale

xvi CHAPTER 1:

INTRODUCTION

When even one American . . . shuts his mind and closes his mouth, all Americans are in peril. —Harry S. Truman

Overview

Civil-military relations are the relationship between civil society as a whole and the military organization(s) protecting it. More narrowly, the term describes the relationship between the civil authority of a given society and its military authority.

Studies of civil-military relations often rest on the normative assumption that civilian control over the military is preferable to military control of the state (Burk, 2002; Kohn,

2008). Avant (1996) and Colleta and Feaver (2003) advanced the discussion within civil- military hierarchies, a relationship characterized as principal-agent (Eisenhardt, 1989;

Jensen & Meckling, 1999). “Our Founding Fathers worried deeply about the potential for abuse of military power and designed numerous constitutional safeguards to ensure the military would remain a servant of the state,” codifying the hierarchy (Barno, 2013). The

Constitution of the United States promulgates the principal-agent relationship: civilian control of the military is a fundamental principle of democracies and for the United

States. Both civilian and military leaders are required to cooperate with each other to make effective strategies, and military subservience to civilian power means the dialogue between the groups is unequal, especially after a presidential election (Berg, 2011;

Cohen, 2003; Hooker & Collins, 2015).

1

Dissent1 is the expression of contradictory opinion about workplace policies and practices (Kassing, 1998). It is also “assertion by a lower power group that a higher power group has come to believe that its partial, bounded views of the world are complete and universal. It is a protest against the higher power group’s isolation from the experience of the other groups in its organizational environment, groups on which it depends and who in turn depend upon it” (Berg, 2011, p. 53). It is “going against the grain” and voicing that disagreement (Young, 2015, p. 3).

There are three types of dissent: upward, lateral, and displaced. Those at the top of the hierarchy hear upward dissent, and those of the same rank hear lateral dissent.

External organizational groups hear displaced dissent (Kassing, 1998; Kassing &

Anderson, 2014).2

Dissent, manifested as dialogue, is an outcome of conflict as groups struggle for control (Jetten & Hornsey, 2014), the “dominant discourse momentarily opened up for contest” (Phillips, 2015, p. 60). Dissent is articulation through enunciation, an act of confrontation with the dominant structure, generating a conflict (Phillips, 2015). Coser

(1956) and Oberschall (1978) defined conflict as the struggle over values and claims to scarce resources, power, and authority—the purposeful interaction among two or more parties in a competitive setting. Whereas dissent is the expression of contradictory opinion, conflict is an interactive struggle. Most conflict theorists, including Marx,

Weber, Simmel, and Coser, concur that dissent, interaction, power, and hierarchy are vital, interrelated components of conflict theory (Coser, 1956; Powell & Robbins, 1984;

Wagner-Pacifici & Hall, 2012), but the correlation with dissent is unclear.

1 See the complete list of key terms defined in Table 1.1 at the end of this chapter. 2 A full definition of the three dissent typologies is provided in Table 1.1. 2

The dissent dialogue generally flows up the hierarchy and is often grounded in the hierarchical disagreements occurring from the military to civilian group (Jetten &

Hornsey, 2014; Owens, 2012); at the top of the hierarchy is the president, commander in chief of the armed forces.

Coser (1956), a conflict theorist, defined consensus in organizational conflict terms as a participative interaction from group conflict resulting in group integration and subordination of the conflict group; communal conflict is based on the social interdependence of groups and common acceptance of the basic ends. At its most extreme, consensus leads to groupthink, wherein a cohesive group is unwilling to dissent for fear of social rejection. The groups strive to maintain the illusion of consensus by avoiding open dissent and agree too quickly (Janis, 1982; Yukl, 2013). History is replete with examples where lack of dissent—consensus and harmony—led to disaster. The carnage of Desert One’s abortive attempt to rescue U.S. hostages held by Iran in the

Carter presidency (McDermott, 1992), groupthink and a feeling of invincibility in the days before the 9/11 attacks, and President George W. Bush’s consensus-seeking approach to post-war Iraq are modern occurrences when high-level civilian groups sought consensus—not dissention and conflict—in their discourse (Hollister, 2011; Kemp &

Hudlin, 1998). Groups in hierarchies often display consensus-seeking approaches at the cost of poor decision-making (Berg, 2011; Janis, 1982), eliminating the benefits of dissent in organizations.

This study analyzed a recurring dissent problem that has been present at the top of the civil-military relational hierarchy since the birth of the U.S. Army in 1775. General

George Washington dissented with the Continental Congress over his lack of salary (and

3

need to personally bankroll Army operations against the Redcoats). General George

McClellan, commander of the Union forces during the early days of the Civil War, openly dissented with President Lincoln, subsequently running against Lincoln in the presidential campaign while still in command of Union forces. Can you imagine an active-duty, top Army general appearing in uniform on television running for president or appearing in the presidential debates?

Dissent has always existed in civil-military relations, often with tragic overtones.

Hollister (2011) gave a brief summation of the most well-known civil-military examples: in 1812, Brigadier General Wade Hampton challenged Secretary of War William Eustis to a duel over the latter’s charge of U.S. Army incompetence. In 1828, Brigadier General

Winfield Scott refused to recognize President John Quincy Adams’s appointment of

Colonel Alexander Macomb as commanding general of the U.S. Army. Scott appealed directly to Congress and demanded Macomb’s arrest. In 1925, Brigadier General (and war hero) Billy Mitchell spoke out for more airpower, and President Calvin Coolidge ordered immediate court martial. More recent, well-known cases occurred in the 1950s and 1960s. President Truman fired MacArthur over the general’s handing of Chinese involvement in Korea, dissent over Truman’s policies (which MacArthur had read in the

House of Representatives), and links to opposition parties. President Johnson’s senior military advisors in the Joint Chiefs likewise dissented over the Vietnam War. This century, a serving chairman of the Joint Chiefs published an essay in Foreign Affairs dissenting with then President-elect Clinton’s pro-humanitarian interventionist policies.

In 2010, General McChrystal dissented in Rolling Stone, and President Obama viewed

4

the dissent as the last straw in McChrystal’s attempt to influence Afghanistan strategy

(Hollister, 2011).

As noted in Hollister (2011), these historical dissent examples highlight that military dissent plays a prominent if little understood role in the hierarchical, highly conflict-driven nature of civil-military relations. The problem of incomplete and shifting understandings of dissention and its outcomes within civil-military contexts has coexisted with the history of dissent. According to Berg (2011), hierarchies are organizational or structural power and authority differences between groups. Those at the top of the hierarchy have more power to act, to impose their view of the world, on those lower in the hierarchy (Berg, 2011). Low hierarchies do not know how to dissent and even if they do, dealing with it is often uncomfortable. Those in the top of the hierarchy also do not understand the mechanics of dissent (Jetten & Hornsey, 2014; Kassing, 1997, 2006,

2007, 2009b). Organizational scholars have noted that dissent models portray a voice- shaping analysis advocated by Gorden and Infante (1987), characterizing dissent in situational, dispositional, relational, institutional, and cultural variable contexts. We know about dissent influencers and dissent typologies, a trickle of literature supporting different motivations related to hierarchical placement in the organization (Jetten & Hornsey,

2014). We know about tactics dissenters use, but we do not know how dissent happens

(Jetten & Hornsey, 2014; Kassing, 1998), nor do we understand the mechanics of how dissent results in positive outcomes. A broader, fuller understanding of organizational dissent should illuminate how dissent episodes occur (Kassing, 1998, 2009a). Therefore, this study aimed to determine how dissent occurs that results in positive outcomes in U.S. civil-military relations.

5

To better understand the phenomenon, I used a historiographical qualitative approach to examine dissent events using primary documentary and narrative source material (Rowlinson, Hassard, & Decker, 2014). History is useful to organizational studies in terms of enriching and deepening theoretical insights and interpretation of data, and recent works have emphasized the need for historical reinterpretations (Greenwood

& Bernardi, 2014). The theoretical dissent literature offers a lens to further explore and understand dissent within civil-military contexts. The study was grounded in modern dissent literature, and particularly the work of Kassing (1998, 2009a, 2009b, 2012), which views hierarchies and power as playing prominent roles within upward dissent models where relationships are in conflict.

Statement of the Problem

I have been impressed by the way the Army’s professional journals allow some of our brightest and most innovative officers to critique—sometimes bluntly—the way the service does business, to include judgments about senior leadership. I encourage you to take on the mantle of fearless, thoughtful, but loyal dissent when the situation calls for it. And, agree with articles or not, senior officers should embrace such dissent as healthy dialogue and protect and advance those considerably more junior who are taking on that mantle. —Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense, in a speech at West Point on 21 April 2008 (Berg, 2011, p. 50)

While former Secretary Gates promoted upward dissent, the problem is that such dissent does not seem to result in positive outcomes. Civilian supervisors do not always consider upward military dissent, and no model for the dissent giver or receiver exists within the hierarchy as dissent goes up the chain (Kassing, 2012). However, when applied to modern civil-military relationships, the fundamental problem is that the military does not know how to dissent. Military dissent upward to the president as commander in chief was the focus of the study, but how the top of the civil-military

6

hierarchy receives the dissent also is a factor; dissent is an interaction between two individuals or groups in a hierarchy (Phillips, 2015).

Those in power, or at a higher level in a hierarchy, react to dissent differently than those who are at lower levels (Falk, 2011; Jetten & Hornsey, 2014; Kassing, 1998, 2001;

Kassing & Armstrong, 2002; Kassing & Kava, 2013). Organizational theorists understand that dissent emerges out of unique prior conditions in which the coherence of dominant discourses is momentarily opened up for contest (Phillips, 2015). But dissent is understood differently in theoretical literature. To Jetten and Hornsey (2014), dissent is the expression of disagreement with group norms, actions, and decisions. To Kassing

(1997), dissent results when one feels apart from an organization. Berg (2011) defined dissent as protest against the higher power’s isolation from the lower power’s experience.

Despite different understandings and definitions of dissent,3 almost all dissent theorists concur that dissent is ultimately healthy to organizations (Berg, 2011; Coser, 1957; Jetten

& Hornsey, 2014; Kassing, 1997, 2001, 2002, 2009a, 2009b; Kassing & Kava, 2013;

Phillips, 2015).

Dissent is a response to dissatisfying workplace conditions manifested in voice or behavior. Such a voice expression isn’t always directed inwardly towards an organization. Voice reflects more than just organizational change topics; dissent is ultimately composed of a “triggering agent, strategy selection influences, strategy

3As noted in Table 1.1, I use a definition of dissent based on Kassing, Berg, and Young. Dissent is the expression of contradictory opinion about workplace policies and practices (Kassing, 1997), an “assertion by a lower power group that a higher power group has come to believe that its partial, bounded views of the world are complete and universal, a protest against the higher power group’s isolation from the experience of the other groups in its organizational environment, groups on which it depends and who in turn depend upon it” (Berg, 2011, p. 53). It is “going against the grain” and voicing that disagreement (Young, 2015, p. 3). 7

selection, and expressed dissent” (Kassing, 1998, p. 10). For example, the dissenter views something unsafe or unethical, is influenced by individual or organizational values, selects an expression strategy, and expresses dissent.

However, in civil-military contexts, dissent is often considered to border on mutiny (Owens, 2012), something to be suppressed (Saas & Hall, 2016), and is seemingly misunderstood in the military research community, suggesting incongruence with dissent theory. Practical military literature defines dissent through a delineation of the political boundaries between political and military groups. That line is constantly shifting (Kohn, 2008, Hollister, 2011; Snider, 2017) and with it the definition of dissent,

“arguing your case up to the point of decision . . . the giving of sound, accurate, fearless, objective information” (Hollister, 2011, p. 5). Dissent is also experientially based, a duty for the soldier to bring “professional military experience to bear in a public forum with the obligation to lead and represent the profession . . . expressly subordinate to civilian control” (Snider, 2008, p. viii).

In the military, the military officer has a code of ethics derived from an oath of office. These tools enable dissent, but do not instruct the military how to dissent, or how to avoid tragic, career-ending consequences for the dissenter. These tools grant the military officer

moral autonomy and obligate him to disobey an order he deems immoral; that is, an order that is likely to harm the institution writ large—the Nation, military, and subordinates—in a manner not clearly outweighed by its likely benefits. This obligation is not confined to effects purely military against those related to policy: the complex nature of contemporary operations no longer permits a clear distinction between the two. Indeed, the military professional’s obligation to disobey is an important check and balance in the execution of policy. In deciding how to dissent, the military officer must understand that this dilemma demands either acceptance of responsibility or wholehearted disobedience. (Milburn, 2010)

8

In sum, the problem is that despite the history of dissent in civil-military relations, the practical definition and understanding of dissent is out of sync with theory. The military is called upon to dissent, but given the historical examples of dissent (arrests, firings, duels, military disasters), the process does not work as well as it should. Dissent seems out of place, an uncomfortable act for a military trained to follow orders. The hierarchy doesn’t quite know what to make of dissent either.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study was to explore the process of dissent in the civil- military relationship, specifically examining the hierarchical and power components of dissent in historical events where the dissent process resulted in positive outcomes. This study chose to study how dissent occurred within a select historical context, namely desegregation of the U.S. Army during the Truman period, 1945 to 1950.

The Truman presidency was a period rich in dissent, especially over desegregation of the U.S. Army. Dissent occurred within civil-military relationships at all levels in many manifestations, impacted the entire military, and led to a positive historical event, desegregation. Civil-military tensions and dissent over desegregation of the military during the Truman years provided the periodicity required in historiographical research, meeting many of the dissent criteria already mentioned in this chapter:

• The topic illustrates the practical (military) and theoretical differences in how

dissent occurs, thereby promoting understanding of how dissent occurs in civil-

military contexts.

• The topic concerns a well-documented period of American history.

9

• While much has been written about desegregation of the military, dissent over

desegregation has not been studied from a theoretical view.

• The topic fits the definition of dissent, in that lower-power groups in civil-military

relations voice-expressed contradictory opinions in protest to the higher-power

(presidential, political) group, despite both groups’ mutual reliance.

Research Question

The expression of dissent within superior-subordinate relationships has garnered considerably less attention in organizational research and theorizing than dissent writ large (Kassing, 2011; Kassing & Anderson, 2014). Recent organizational literature on dissent has focused on dissent expression upward in hierarchical relationships (Kassing &

Anderson, 2014), motivations that groups have to deviate and dissent (Jetten & Hornsey,

2015), the history of dissent in the United States (Young, 2015), the effect of full- or part- time employment status on amounts and types of dissent employees express upward to management (Kassing, Fanelli, & Chakravarthy, 2015), dissent discourse (Phillips,

2015), and organizational assimilation and upward dissent (Croucher, Zeng, & Kassing,

2016; Goldman & Myers, 2015). Superior-subordinate relationships are a common theme in most recent literature, representing a particularly potent factor in determining when and how employees express dissent (Kassing, 2009b, 2011). We know very little about how employees dissent, and even less within civil-military relationships. How dissent occurs is difficult to understand in civil-military relations because the principal-agent model with the president as commander-in-chief as principal and the military as agent is complicated. The U.S. Congress controls the financial resources and creates what Gibson and Snider (1999, p. 201) called “dual agency,” where the military answers to the

10

president and to Congress, but the role of the agent changes. In addition, civilian and military leaders represent different constituencies. This situation has the potential to result in conflict. What we don’t know about this process—the voice assertion by the lower-power group against the higher-power group, protest going against the grain and the higher power’s isolation (Berg, 2011; Kassing, 1997; Young, 2015)—is how this process occurs in positive outcomes.

This study examined dissent processes within civil-military relations resulting in positive outcomes. The study was guided by one research question:

• How does dissent occur within civil-military relations in positive4 historical

dissent events?

Subsequent questions arose during research: What can we understand about the application of dissent theory as either a cause of conflict or a result of it? What are the relationships between hierarchy and power? How is dissent used within civil-military contexts? What groups comprise the civil-military relationship? What period of time in our nation’s history did dissent between the groups comprising civil-military relations play such a vital role, resulting in a positive outcome?

Statement of Potential Significance

General Martin Dempsey, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and principal military adviser to the president, noted that “civil-military relations are a rocky road” and the rocks are conflict, friction, and dissent; the question is how the relationship

“is managed and understood” (Garamone, 2014). Those who research civil-military relations call for more understanding of how dissent happens: the strategic leader needs

4 An event considered to be beneficial to society. 11

to understand how dissent works to elicit dissent and encourage open dialogue in the civil-military relationship (Murphy, 2012). Garamone (2014), Murphy (2012), and other civil-military theorists pointed to this study’s significance: provide an understanding on how dissent occurs “in a world increasingly turning grey where our future civil-military discourse demands strategic military leaders to fully understand dissent and its implications” (Gibson, 2012, p. i). Without the ability to dissent, the military becomes little more than “servants in a cafeteria” (Snider, 2017, p. 14). In organizational theory, the study answered the call to take an understanding of how dissent occurs to the next level, to examine the dissent response over time “in real, interacting groups and in different group contexts” (Jetten & Hornsey, 2014, p. 479), to embrace dissent as an essential contribution to democratic practice (Phillips, 2015), to fill the research gap that has omitted dissent over time as an interaction of multiple people between groups

(Goldman & Myers, 2015).

The study’s significance lies in the understanding it will promote between dissent theory and the practice of civil-military relations. The study establishes a baseline for a scholarly conversation between theory and practice, advocating for a theoretical perspective of how dissent occurs within civil-military relations. This study contributes to the linkages between theory and practice in four ways: (1) by understanding how dissent occurs in the practice of civil-military relations in the United States in a particular time period; (2) by examining the role hierarchy and power play in dissent and conflict; (3) by answering the call of many organizational theorists for the integration of history into organizational, theoretical studies (Booth & Rowlinson, 2006; Wadhwani & Bucheli,

2014); and (4) by introducing Lamb’s (2013) historical discourse analysis as a means of

12

analyzing dissent occurrences over a period of time among different levels of the groups comprising civil-military relations.

The study focused on how dissent happens, processes and practices that characterize speaking out due to feeling apart from an organization (Kassing & Kava,

2013). Hierarchy and power are key components of dissent (Kassing, 1997, 1998, 2012;

Kassing & Anderson, 2014). As noted in chapter 2, there are two schools of thought regarding the role hierarchy, power, and conflict play in dissent. One group of researchers has viewed dissent as an output of conflict in power and hierarchy (Buckner, Ledbetter,

& Bridge, 2013; Coser, 1956, 1957, 1967; Falk, 2011; Levy, 2014; Lipsky & Avgar,

2008; Oberschall, 1978; Wagner-Pacifici & Hall, 2012; Whelan, 2013). Other researchers have depicted conflict as an output over dissent in power and hierarchy (Gorden &

Infante, 1980; Harp, Loke, & Bachmann, 2010; Hollister, 2011; Kassing, 1997, 1998,

2011; Kassing & Kava, 2013; Land, 2007; Milliken, Morrison, & Hewlin, 2003;

Millman, 2005; Moore, 2000; Morrison & Milliken, 2000; Young, 2015). The study’s significance lies in finding a middle ground between these two camps.

The study also has significance for scholars interested in historical methods.

Organizational theorists rarely position their findings against relevant historical literature, but they should; they underrate the need to engage with historiography (Greenwood &

Bernardi, 2014). Researchers seeking alternative qualitative approaches to organizational studies may find value in the study’s qualitative historical methodology as a model to apply theory to organizational practice. Researchers interested in finding deeper meanings within broader sociopolitical contexts and fields of action may find my use of

Lamb’s (2013) historical discourse analysis valuable (Lamb, 2013; Wodak, 2008).

13

Good civil-military relations means a balance exists between a military that is efficient and accountable, but dissention discourse is often a judgment call for senior officers because the military does not know how to dissent, nor understand the reasons why it dissents (Avant, 1998). A goal for my research was to promote understanding of how dissent occurs between the groups in civil-military relations, to make the road to good civil-military relations a bit less rocky (Garamone, 2014).

Conceptual Framework

Conflict theory provides the theoretical springboard for the conceptual framework, grounded in the perspective of dissent proposed by Kassing (2009a, 2009b;

Kassing & Anderson, 2014; Kassing & Kava, 2013) regarding upward dissent in superior-subordinate relationships. Dissent theory rejects the idea that dissent happens quickly (Kassing, 2009a). Rather, dissent is expressed in response to multiple issues within organizational climate constraints and is a process of interactions over time

(Kassing, 2009a; Kassing & Kava, 2013). Key factors in the dissent process are hierarchy and power (Buckner et al., 2013; Coser, 1956, 1957, 1967; Falk, 2011; Gorden & Infante,

1980; Harp et al., 2010; Kassing, 1997, 1998, 2011; Kassing & Kava, 2013; Land, 2007;

Levy, 2014; Lipsky & Avgar, 2008; Milliken et al., 2003; Millman, 2005; Moore, 2000;

Morrison & Milliken, 2000; Oberschall, 1978; Wagner-Pacifici & Hall, 2012; Whelan,

2013; Young, 2015). In civil-military practice, the military and civilian enter into a social contract with the understanding that the military is subservient in the hierarchy (Hollister,

2011; Huntington, 1957; Snider, 2008). Hierarchy and power are common elements in this relationship (Kassing & Anderson, 2014).

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I used a definition of power anchored in conflict theory, discourse, and practical application in civil-military contexts: Power is access to and control over material resources (Coser, 1957) and symbolic resources (access to public discourse) (Van Dijk,

2008), the power to control people’s behavior as either formal authority or informal influence (Huntington, 1957). Coser (1956) and Oberschall (1978) defined conflict as the struggle over values and claims to scarce resources, power, and authority—the purposeful interaction among two or more parties in a competitive setting.

I used a definition of hierarchy adopted in part by Berg (2011): Hierarchy occurs when organizational or structural power and authority differences exist between groups.

Those at the top of the hierarchy have more power to act, to impose their view of the world, on those lower in the hierarchy. Top groups in organizations are likely to be encased in their views of the world by blocking feedback from groups below.

As depicted in the conceptual framework (Figure 1.1), relationships exist between conflict, hierarchy, power, and dissent. The hierarchy suggests that a superior-subordinate relationship is required, such as supervisor-employee or coach-athlete (Cohen, 2003;

Kassing, 2000; Kassing & Anderson, 2014; Kassing & Kava, 2013). Within this hierarchical relationship, communication (usually) by voice occurs, enabling dissent to flow (Jetten & Hornsey, 2014; Kassing & Kava, 2013; Morrison & Milliken, 2000;

Phillips, 2015; van Dijk, 2008). Those at the top of the hierarchy use power to shape and maintain group dominance (van Dijk, 1993).

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Figure 1.1. Conceptual framework.

Reciprocal relationships exist between hierarchy and power, as represented by the two-way arrow in Figure 1.1 between hierarchy and power. Groups dominant in the hierarchy control access to social resources that all subgroups value. Within the conceptual frame, I incorporated the hierarchy/power relationship proposed by Van Dijk

(1993), power occurring within hierarchical characteristics of status and privilege.

Control over the resource of discourse and preferential access are at the “heart of all forms of social inequality” and ultimately how the group determines who is at the top of the social hierarchy, the so-called “elites” (Van Dijk, 1993, p. 21). The dynamics of this hierarchy-power relationship are revealed in discourse, leading to further analysis as advocated by Lamb (2013) in historical discourse analysis, depicted by the “method” arrow/box in Figure 1.1. Subgroups at the top of the hierarchy use discourse to maintain

16

power and shape their group dominance. According to Van Dijk (1993, 2008), this dynamic in power-hierarchy is particularly acute in issues of white group dominance over minorities, lending impetus for the selection of desegregation of the U.S. Army as a topic

(as depicted in the “Truman Years 1945-1950” box in Figure 1.1). Historical discourse analysis examines social relationships, power relations between different groups, and the

“usual hierarchy of position, rank, or status within these institutions” (Van Dijk, 2008, p. 40).

To determine how dissent occurs occur within the civil-military relationship in positive, historical dissent events, the conceptual frame indicates analysis in

patterns in the discourse, patterns that are shaped and reshaped in the social and political atmosphere of the past and the present. These patterns are historical and political legitimating principles that constitute the available means for the participants for what is appropriate or safe to say. (Jóhannesson, 2010, p. 252)

Analytic methods based in discourse-historical approaches should examine

“multiple societal levels” (Lamb, 2013, p. 334). Micro-level fields of action occur among private individuals within civil society. Macro-analytic levels occur as state-level actions

(Lamb, 2013, p. 338). Similarly, micro and macro levels exist when examining pure historical discourses, particularly when a power relationship is present (Taylor, 2013;

Wodak, 1997). Such an analysis as depicted in Figure 1.1 suggests that hierarchy and power contribute to an articulation of dissent with the intention of promoting change

(Goldman & Myers, 2015; Kassing, 2009b).

Summary of the Methodology

Organizational researchers are increasingly returning to the integration of history into organizational studies (Wadhwani & Bucheli, 2014), with many openly calling for

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more historical orientation in management and organization theory to examine existing theoretical precepts within ahistorical orientations (Booth & Rowlinson, 2006). This study used a qualitative, historiographical approach with the framework proposed by

Lamb (2013) and Rowlinson et al. (2014). An analytically structured historical approach retains narrative5 as the main focus of explanation.

Civil-military theorists have likewise called for more historical methods to understand modern civil-military relations. History is “absent from the debate” occurring in civil-military relations; the use of history can “identify the foundations for civil- military relations” (Bland, 1999, p. 16).

Subgroups exist within civil-military relations. Lamb’s (2013) discourse-historical analytical method analyzes dissent occurring between state and private subgroups of civil society. Lamb’s (2013) method captures the manifestation of hierarchy and power in dissent typologies ranging from upward dissent to displaced (outward) dissent. Power is present everywhere and, according to Lamb, to analyze it is to examine multiple societal hierarchical levels, as analyzed in chapter 5.

The historical chronology of dissent regarding the desegregation of the U.S. Army during the Truman period of 1945 to 1950 discovered historical evidence of the period where groups in the civil-military relationship dissented over desegregation. This enabled historical discourse analysis (Lamb, 2013). Evidence sources for this historiographical

5 Historians define narrative as the “untold story that exists independently and prior to being discovered and told by the historian,” but to organizational theorists, a narrative is the explanation of historical events as a stepping stone toward theoretical development (Rowlinson et al., 2014, p. 253). According to Rowlinson et al. (2014), organization theorists and historical theorists agree that the minimal definition of narrative is a sequence of logically and chronologically related events organized by a coherent plot. This does not mean that events have to be presented in chronological order, and a simple chronological sequence of events is often seen as insufficient to constitute a narrative. The story consists of all the events depicted, and the plot is the chain of causation linking them (Rowlinson et al., 2014, p. 254). 18

study are explained in more detail in chapter 3, with a chronology of dissent between civil-military groups presented in chapter 4, but consisted of primary source material drawn from repositories in official military archives, presidential libraries, and autobiographical materials. Examples of military archives are the official U.S. Army archives located at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and Command and General Staff Officers’ College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The Truman Library in

Independence, Missouri, is an example of a presidential library. Historical evidence was vast in scope; to cull the data around hierarchy-power relationships, I used a legitimacy- action-meaning indicator from Scott and Davis (2007) and Lamb (2013). In the legitimate indicator, legitimate normative groups have laws. Legitimate cultural groups use symbols and share meanings (Scott & Davis, 2007, p. 259).6 In the action indicator, groups engage in actions to manage environments. Such actions are measurable power-hierarchy indicators. In the meaning indicator, different groups make meaning, revealed in discourse (Lamb, 2013). The application of periodicity shaped the research around the central period of 1945 to 1950 and involved seminal events that continue to shape civil- military relations today.

Limitations

This study was limited to understanding dissent within a certain period (1945-

1950) and event (desegregation of the U.S. Army) and should be seen as a platform for future studies. It did not intend to solve problems of dissent within the context of civil- military relations. It also did not intend to study individual levels of dissent in peer-to-

6 Legitimacy has authority and power linkages, the perception that the actions of an entity are appropriate within socially constructed norms, values, beliefs, and definitions (Scott & Davis, 2007). Thus, only legitimate archival data was selected when a person spoke for the group. 19

peer relationships. While dissent may occur individually, ultimately dissenters use prosocial tactics, rooted in relationships, personalities, cultures, and situations in conflict

(Kassing & Kava, 2013). Nor did this study focus on social movements in dissent, such as the struggle for Negro equality in the United States. Rather, the focus was on institutions within civil-military relations, specifically the U.S. Army and the political class. In civil-military contexts, conflict in American history is seldom simply a matter of a military member dissenting against a civilian person in authority. Usually, dissent occurs between one faction of civilians and soldiers versus another civil-military faction

(Connelly, 2010).

Some may question the validity of historical approaches in organizational studies.

History is still not widely recognized as normalized within organizational studies

(Greenwood & Bernardi, 2014). The limitation of this approach is generalizability.

However, many theorists have noted that historical conceptualization offers insights not achieved through other approaches (Humphreys, Gibson, & Oyler, 2013). Indeed, historical approaches are beneficial to the extension of theory (Humphreys et al., 2013;

Rowlinson et al., 2014; Shamir, 2011).

A final limitation was the time period studied. As Humphreys et al. (2013) noted, periodicity occurs in cruder times, leading to skepticism in applying lessons learned from historiographical approaches to a technologically advanced time. Nonetheless, historical conflicts from another time provide lessons for the 21st century and are increasingly applied in organizational research (Humphreys et al., 2013; Rowlinson et al., 2014).

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Historical Background

This brief section establishes a historical baseline with archives as the vantage point to “bring to light new forms of knowledge that otherwise have remained shrouded in obscurity” (Farge, 2013, p. 54). This section also provides historical context and justification for a study of dissent. Historical reasoning requires contextualized explanations, assessing the action in light of subsequent developments, actors, and actions temporally situated (Wadhwani & Bucheli, 2014).

Historical Frame—Enter Truman

Historians have noted that the period of American history between World War II and the Korean War shaped the political, economic, military, and social spectrums of modern America (McCullough, 1992; Pierpaoli, 2000; Weigley, 1993). In civil-military contexts, the “present-day command structure in the United States is uniquely his

[Truman’s] progeny” (Haynes, 1973, p. 93). The Truman period marked the end of an era when the military silently supported civilian decisions at the intersection of policy, diplomacy, and strategy (Weigley, 1993, p. 56). Restructuring the military under the

National Security Act of 1947 gave the military a formalized, hierarchical structure to formally go against the grain in civil-military affairs and present military solutions for the various (often nonmilitary) problems discussed at National Security Council meetings

(Haynes, 1973, p. 109).

Harry S. Truman was sworn in as the country’s 33rd president on 12 April 1945.

In the wake of Roosevelt’s death, Truman immediately inherited a myriad of complex foreign and domestic issues, including desegregation of the military, senior military officials “absolutely rejecting the call” for equal access to all military specialties, and the

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U.S. Army chief of staff dissenting to Roosevelt and, subsequently, Truman (Evans,

2003, p. 37). Contrary to popular myth, desegregation of the services was not accomplished overnight through President Harry S. Truman’s Executive Order (EO)

9981 in 1948. Military leadership remained skeptical even after 1948 (Adams, 1999;

Dalfiume, 1968).

In 1946, Truman’s approval ratings hovered in the low 30% range. Labor unrest was common. In civil rights, Truman became the first president to address the National

Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1947, pledging support for equal rights of all men (Truman, 1947). He won his first presidential election in 1948, narrowly defeating Republican Thomas Dewey, with every political pundit predicting a

Dewey victory (similar to predictions of an easy Clinton win in 2016). Domestically, the conservative Congress blocked many of Truman’s expansive New Deal social programs.

Inflation threatened to derail the economy, still in transition from footing a war, due in part to rising food prices (with the price of meat doubling in 2 weeks). His own power base in the Democratic Party suffered as many (southern) Democrats walked out of the party convention in protest to civil rights planks and his statements to the NAACP

(McCullough, 1992). Truman’s share of the popular vote improved to 49.5% in 1948, but the lack of a mandate meant Truman needed the support of members of both parties.

However, Republicans were fearful of Communist domination and blamed the Democrats for postwar peace being short-lived.

No other president faced so many unique international challenges as well, according to noted Truman biographer and Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough

(1992). Truman, the first president of the atomic/nuclear era, faced a resurgent and

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recalcitrant Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. Communism threatened to undermine his domestic agenda as McCarthyism took hold. Truman ordered the Berlin airlift in 1948 after Soviet-led troops besieged the city. He needed to uphold the precepts of the Truman

Doctrine, calling for fighting the spread of Communism while supporting the ever- expensive Marshall Plan. Truman also approved a plan to enable over 200,000 European refugees to settle in the United States (McCullough, 1992).

As noted in Haynes (1999) and McCullough (1992), in 1947 Truman signed the

National Security Act Amendment, establishing a Department of Defense from the War

Department and setting the foundation (literally and figuratively) for the modern

Pentagon. Two weeks later, Truman proclaimed the establishment of the North Atlantic

Treaty Organization (NATO). In 1950, Truman sent troops to South Korea, successfully managing to keep atomic weapons out of the tactical and operational options despite the protests of his leading general, MacArthur, who was subsequently relieved (Haynes,

1973; McCullough, 1992).

Truman and Negro Equality in Civil Rights

Truman as a senator did not have much of a track record on minority rights

(McCoy & Ruetten, 1973). Upon inheriting the presidency, Negro7 newspapers expressed apprehension at their lot under the new Truman administration (McCoy & Ruetten,

1973). White Southern violence against Negroes in 1946 changed Truman’s passivity. A

Negro veteran, in uniform, had his eyes poked out by South Carolina policemen. Five months later, “two Negro veterans and their wives were taken from a car near Monroe,

7 Throughout this work, it is necessary to use language of the period reflected in the source material or reference. The term “African American” was not used in the period. 23

Georgia, by a mob of white men” who lined them up against a wall and fired 60 shots

“into their bodies” (Dalfiume, 1969, p. 132). Civil rights issues soon consumed much of

Truman’s attention. Meeting with civil rights leaders in September 1946 in response to the incidents, Truman rose to his feet: “My God. I had no idea it was as terrible as that.

We got to do something” (Donovan, 1996, p. 245). Do something he did: on 5 December

1946, Truman issued EO 9808, creating the President’s Committee on Civil Rights to

“safeguard the civil rights of the people.”8 This would not be Truman’s last use of such authority.

No president since Lincoln had such an interest in the civil rights of Negro

Americans. Truman brought minorities into the political arena and committed the government to social legislation to support Negros and other minorities (MacGregor,

1981; McCullough, 1992). The Negro vote became even more important in 1948, with

Southern Democrats failing to support Truman in a close election campaign.

The urban black vote had become a major goal of Truman’s election campaign. . . . A presidential order on armed forces integration logically followed because the services, conspicuous practitioners of segregation and patently susceptible to unilateral action on the part of the Chief Executive, were obvious and necessary targets in the black voters’ campaign for civil rights. (MacGregor, 1981, p. 292)

In fact, Truman used his power to court the “Negro and other minorities . . . hoping to confound congressional opposition” (MacGregor, 1981, p. 295).

Meanwhile, with military reorganization underway under the auspices of the 1947

National Security Act, Truman followed the advice of his Committee on Civil Rights.

The Committee’s written report, To Secure These Rights: The Report of the President’s

8 Exec. Order No. 9808 Establishing the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, 11 Fed. Reg. 4153 (7 December 1946). 24

Committee on Civil Rights, recommended using the military as an instrument of social change. World War II had demonstrated that the armed services could implement social change as a model for society. The report also cited:

The injustice of calling men to fight for freedom while subjecting them to humiliating discrimination within the fighting forces is at once apparent. Furthermore, by preventing entire groups from making their maximum contribution to national defense, we weaken our defense to that extent and impose heavier burdens on the remainder of the population. (President’s Committee on Civil Rights, 1947, p. 162)

Executive Order Defined: A Powerful Tool

EOs are formal bases for presidential power that are “largely unappreciated”

(Moe & Howell, 1999, p. 133). Presidents have enjoyed broad leeway to exercise power.

The Federal Register Act of 1935 “called for presidents to register and thus make public all executive orders” (Moe & Howell, 1999, p. 155). EOs have legal force only when they are based on the president’s constitutional or statutory authority. Presidents “take an expansive view of their own power when it suits them, and use executive orders to expand the boundaries of their authority” (Mayer, 1999, p. 448). EOs are presidential directives requiring or authorizing action within the executive branch. EOs establish policy, reorganize agencies, change regulatory processes, and impact legislation interpretations and implementations, taking whatever action is permitted within the boundaries of constitutional or statutory authority. The legal precedents for EOs are vague: the Constitution does not mention use of EOs, but the Constitution does mention use of executive power. Power is broad, but not unlimited—EOs are subject to legal review and may be overturned by the judicial branch (Mayer, 1999).

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The Negro Minority in the Military

A total of 800,000 Negroes served in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War

II, in keeping with the military policy of parity between the number of Negroes serving in uniform and the ratio of Negro to white in the nation as a whole. In other words, if 10% of the population was Negro, the percentage of Negro soldiers and sailors should be 10%.

Negroes were generally not assigned to combat roles until 1944, according to a 1993 U.S.

Army study, because of “questions about their ability to fight” (Darden, 1993, p. 3), the

U.S. Army going so far as to prove inferiority due to scores of minority soldiers on the

U.S. Army General Classification Test (AGCT). Due to these low AGCT scores, Negroes were perceived to lack intelligence and were assigned to general labor jobs. The AGCT actually measured formal education level, not intelligence, and Negroes in society

(especially in the South) lacked educational opportunities. The 1993 U.S. Army study noted that both Negroes and whites disliked the policy, Negroes in particular. According to the top of the U.S. Army hierarchy, Negros were “not considered competent enough to fight in defense of their country” (Darden, 1993, p. 4).

After the war, the armed forces remained citadels of racial segregation. Negro morale suffered. One author, writing in the racially charged year of 1969, characterized the segregated, postwar military as one filled with prejudice and discrimination in all four branches of the service.9 Since the military reflected society, military traditions and bureaucracy exacerbated the institutional racism (Dalfiume, 1969).

While the military made some inroads to desegregation in the closing months of

World War II and immediately thereafter, the issue of Negroes in the military soon

9 The National Security Act of 1947 established the U.S. Air Force as the fourth branch of service on 18 September. 26

became inexorably linked with the conflict in society over civil rights as Negroes united to threaten a boycott of the draft in 1948. Influential leaders, like A. Philip Randolph,

“launched a sustained demand for equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces during the early postwar period” (MacGregor, 1981, p. 124). Reliant on boycott and threat of bloc voting, the civil rights campaign had the appearance of a mass movement.

Keeping in mind the Supreme Court did not eliminate school segregation until 1954, the voting minority had power over Truman as he faced a tough election campaign. Votes were a resource; the struggle for votes led to conflict.

Negroes who served during the war, despite their relegation to mainly combat support roles, “were given new work experiences” along with better pay, living conditions, and food than they enjoyed before their service (MacGregor, 1981, p. 125).

These new skills prepared them for life in the postwar period, contributed to desegregation, and severed many from restrictive societal traditions dating back to the

Civil War.

Executive Order Implemented

If the integration of the armed services now seems to have been inevitable in a democratic society, it nevertheless faced opposition that had to be overcome . . . through the combined efforts of political and civil rights leaders and civil and military officials. (Brigadier General James L. Collins, Jr., Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1980, as cited in MacGregor, 1981, p. vii)

With Truman’s election anything but certain, and Southern Democrats in revolt,

Truman and his inner circle debated the civil rights issue. At the Democratic Convention,

Hubert Humphrey, a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Minnesota, said Congress must

“support our President in guaranteeing these basic and fundamental rights . . . the right of equal treatment in the service and defense of our nation” (Memo, Leva for Secretary of

27

Defense, 15 July 1948, D54-I-3, SecDef Files). Truman had to act fast as he caught wind of a potential Republican pre-emptive strike on desegregation planks in their own convention. With battle lines drawn in Congress, Truman chose an option that did not need congressional approval: an EO. On 26 July 1948, he issued EO 9981, declaring equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.10

Truman’s Relations with the Military

In studying dissent, Landier, Sraer, and Thesmar (2009) modeled an organization as a hierarchy, with a person or subgroup in charge of selecting projects and implementation; studying the roles and relationships of those at the top of the hierarchy is beneficial to understanding dissent in organizations. This brief section discusses the relationship of the top of the hierarchy (Truman) with the military.

Harry S. Truman served with distinction in World War I. As a U.S. Army field artillery captain, he saw action on the Western Front, providing fire support to George S.

Patton’s armored brigade in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive (Harry S. Truman Presidential

Library, n.d.). Despite prior military service and combat experience, his U.S. Army service did not necessarily endear him to the military as commander-in-chief. Unlike his predecessor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Truman insisted that he approve all military decisions above the mundane, changing the service secretaries’ calculus (Haynes, 1973, p. 30).

In the wake of Truman’s commitment to NATO in April 1949, military leaders had serious misgivings about him. “Since the United States already had troops stationed

10 The full text is available at Appendix B. 28

in Germany, it seemed superfluous for Washington to commit itself by treaty to military action against Soviet aggression” (Dallek, 2008, p. 89). Military leaders felt they lacked the resources to adequately defend Western Europe. While the majority of Americans supported NATO commitments, military support was mixed (Dallek, 2008; McCullough,

1992).

The U.S. Army lost control of the atomic arsenal to the Truman-supported Atomic

Energy Act of 1946. The act created the Atomic Energy Commission, which served the president directly. The commission excluded the military from control over atomic weapons, exacerbating military strategic and operational planning. “The military services felt very strongly that the control of atomic development should be under their auspices.

. . . They were not even allowed physical control over these devices which had revolutionized strategic and tactical thinking” (Haynes, 1973, pp. 71-74). Atomic weapons also contributed to the “bellicose atmosphere” of civil-military relations in

1948. The reduction in military appropriations and subsequent reliance on massive atomic retaliation made a military response to Soviet aggression difficult for military planners (Haynes, 1973, p. 142).

Military leadership also clashed with Truman over the pace of German rearmament. “For months after the military officially sanctioned German rearmament . . .

Truman tried to quiet the issue.” The official military position of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ended demilitarization, especially due to the Soviet threat (Gehrz, 2001, p. 142). Also, during the Berlin airlift in 1948, Truman overruled the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who preferred a different approach than the Truman-supported humanitarian airlift (Haynes,

1973, p. 141).

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Definitions of Key Terms

Table 1.1 defines the key terms used in this study.

Table 1.1 Key Terms Term Author Definition Analytically Rowlinson et al. Narrative and periodization that uses primary structured history (2014) documentary and narrative sources. Civil-military Burk (2002); Relationship between civil society as a whole and the Relations Schiff (1995); military organization(s) protecting it (Burk, 2002). There Saas & Hall are three groups in the equation: the military, the (2016) political elite, and the “citizenry,” or social group. Conflict Coser (1957); The struggle over values and claims to scarce resources, Oberschall (1978) power, and authority; the purposeful interaction among two or more parties in a competitive setting. Desegregation Reid (1954) A neutralizing process occurring when groups have been prevented from having harmonious relations because of regulations determining the status of a particular group, a prerequisite to integration. Desegregation Mausner (1961) A legal and social step by which members of a minority group are given equal access to facilities. Displaced Kassing (1997, Expression of disagreement or contradictory opinions (outward) dissent 1998) about workplace policies and practices to friends, family, and other people outside of one’s formal organization. Dissent Kassing (1997) Expression of contradictory opinion about workplace policies and practices. Dissent Berg (2011) “Assertion by a lower power group that a higher power group has come to believe that its partial, bounded views of the world are complete and universal. It is a protest against the higher power group’s isolation from the experience of the other groups in its organizational environment, groups on which it depends and who in turn depend upon it” (p. 53). Dissent Young (2015) Going against the grain in a two-step process: disagreement and voicing that disagreement. What it is after that remains unclear. Dissent is an essential part of what it means to be American and has played a central role in U.S. history. Executive order Mayer (1999) Legally, an important instrument of presidential power. (power) Executive orders implement the president’s most important policy initiatives based on a combination of constitutional and statutory power available. In contrast,

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Term Author Definition a political science definition of the term portrays executive orders as used for routine and minor tasks. Focal dissenter Berg (2011) The view that dissent is almost always an intergroup principle event, with the dissenter representing a group (or subgroup) in actions or words. The more visible the group behind the focal dissenter, the more likely the substance of the dissent will be taken seriously by the authority group. Hierarchy Berg (2011) Organizational or structural power and authority differences between groups: Those at the top of the hierarchy have more power to act, to impose their view of the world, on those lower in the hierarchy. Top groups in organizations are likely to be encased in their views of the world when groups below withhold negative feedback because they feel vulnerable to the displeasure of the more powerful groups. Integration Reid (1954) Mutual appreciation and use of all institutions and values that a society regards as right and just. People must overcome prejudices and discrimination, and the ideal can be realized only as it is brought into the experience of living. It is based on assumptions. Integration Mausner (1961) Social change where a population learns to live together and drop ancient biases and privileges. Lateral dissent Kassing & The expression of dissent to coworkers generally Armstrong (2002) occurring when opportunities to share dissent with management are blocked, especially in low work experience levels. Organizational Kassing (1997) Expression of disagreement or contradictory opinions dissent that result from feeling apart from an organization. Periodicity/ Rowlinson et al. Identification of a discrete segment of history as periodization (2014) historiographically significant beyond the perceptions of the actors at the time; defining the object of study in a specific historical context defined by the period. Power Burns (1978) A relationship involving the power holder and power (presidential) recipient. It is collective. Power isn’t one entity per se, but power and character/leadership combine in the context of complex human relationships. Power Neustadt (1990), The ability to persuade others what the president wants (presidential) Sylvia (1995) is in their best interest. Presidential orders (executive orders) are rarely carried out due to authority. Presidents maximize the uncertainty of noncompliance and minimize the uncertainties of compliance.

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Term Author Definition Power Coser (1957), Access to and control over material (Coser, 1957) and Huntington symbolic resources such as access to public discourse (1957), Van Dijk (Van Dijk, 2008); the power to control people’s (2008), Yukl behavior as either formal authority or informal influence (2013) (Huntington, 1957); the capacity of one party to influence other target person(s) at a point in time, of which there are many types (Yukl, 2013). Serial history Anteby & Molnar Analysis that is stated chronologically and uses data (2012), from archives and analysis of primary sources. It Rowlinson et al. involves observation and interviews of “sources,” not (2014) people, and is widely accepted by historians. Unequal dialogue Cohen (2003) Conversation between political leaders and generals that needs to be candid, and sometimes offensively blunt, yet remains always unequal, forever resting on the final and unambiguous authority of the political leader. Upward dissent Kassing (1997, Dissent expressed to management, up the hierarchy. 2009a, 2014) Supervisors hear dissent in high-commitment, high- freedom-of-speech organizations. Upward dissent tactics are solution presentation, factual appeal, repetition, circumvention, and resignation. Voice Morrison & Discretionary verbal communication of ideas, Milliken (2000) suggestions, and opinions with the intent to improve organizational functions.

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CHAPTER 2:

LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

Dissent is the expression of contradictory opinion about workplace policies and practices (Kassing, 1997).11 It is also “assertion by a lower power group that a higher power group has come to believe that its partial, bounded views of the world are complete and universal. It is a protest against the higher power group’s isolation from the experience of the other groups in its organizational environment, groups on which it depends and who in turn depend upon it” (Berg, 2011, p. 53). It is “going against the grain” and voicing that disagreement (Young, 2015, p. 3).

To orient my study of how dissent happens in civil-military relations, it is necessary to unpack the components of dissent. Hierarchies and power are implicit in the definition of dissent: the lower-power group’s protest against the higher-power group

(Berg, 2011). Hierarchy and power are key components of dissent (Kassing, 1997, 1998,

2012; Kassing & Anderson, 2014). Hierarchy and power also have relationships with conflict. This chapter explores the research holding dissent as an output of conflict in power and hierarchy (Buckner et al., 2013; Coser, 1956, 1957, 1967; Falk, 2011; Levy,

2014; Lipsky & Avgar, 2008; Oberschall, 1978; Wagner-Pacifici & Hall, 2012; Whelan,

2013) and conflict as an output over dissent in power and hierarchy (Gorden & Infante,

1980; Harp et al., 2010; Hollister, 2011; Kassing, 1997, 1998, 2011; Kassing & Kava,

11 Not to be confused with compromise, one of the outcomes of dissent, when both parties in the superior-subordinate relationship achieve a positive organizational benefit from the expression of dissent (Kassing, 2007). 33

2013; Land, 2007; Milliken et al., 2003; Millman, 2005; Moore, 2000; Morrison &

Milliken, 2000; Young, 2015).

Methods of the Literature Review

There are three methodological literature search areas: (1) the peer-reviewed research regarding dissent; (2) primary source material regarding dissent over desegregation of the U.S. Army in the period of 1945 to 1950; and (3) civil-military literature generally written by or for military audiences. Most of my focus occurred in the first area, dissent literature. Each area is described below.

Methods: Dissent. The literature review quickly revealed that there is no one central repository or peer-reviewed academic journal for dissent literature. Researchers have focused on the “motivations and conditions that make people conform rather than on the motivations and conditions underpinning” dissent, leading to a lack of literature on how dissent happens (Jetten & Hornsey, 2014, p. 461). I therefore began the literature review with a search of “dissent” in the following search engines: Google Scholar,

ProQuest, and Articles Plus. Regrettably, the Articles Plus search returned over 200,000 journal articles. A quick scan revealed that most articles related to constitutional law.

Changing the search parameters to “organizational dissent” in Google Scholar revealed four articles by Jeffrey W. Kassing of Arizona State University. It soon became apparent that instead of referencing dissent in journals, I should instead change the search parameters to search for articles by this researcher: an Articles Plus search for “Dissent” and “Kassing” revealed over 40 works by this dissent-researcher. I then mined his reference lists to gain a better perspective of dissent literature as well as to avoid overreliance on one researcher.

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Finding peer-reviewed literature regarding the components of dissent (hierarchy, power, and conflict in dissent) was even more problematic. For example, an Articles Plus search for “power” returned over 11 million peer-reviewed articles. Narrowing the search to “power and dissent” also proved problematic, as most of the results were in law or political science fields. Rejecting search returns regarding the dissenting opinion of court cases became a common theme, although in one particular case, an article discussed the theory of dissent in legal judgments and why justices generally do not dissent alone.

Locating peer-reviewed research regarding dissent components was a time- consuming process of cross-referencing the search returns of citations for Kassing and his work with the narrowing of search terms. For example, to examine power and dissent, I used “organizational dissent power” in my search term in Google Scholar, and then used the “cited by” function. I then cross-referenced the authors with the original reference list used by the seminal researcher. For hierarchy, I used “organizational dissent in hierarchies” in Google Scholar. Using RefWorks, I then placed the references into baskets entitled “pure dissent, dissent-hierarchy, dissent power, conflict, other.” For conflict, I used a similar approach to locating a seminal researcher, following the suggestion of Dr. David Szabla, a former assistant professor of human and organizational learning at The George Washington University, Executive Leadership Program, to research the works of the seminal conflict theorist who also studied dissent (Coser). Most of Coser’s work was from the 1950s and 1960s; while it remained germane, I then used the “cited by” function again in Google Scholar to find more recent works in the dissent- conflict vein.

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Social conflict theory and related terms are theoretical lenses with application to the broad theoretical context of the study, establishing the conditions and constructs in which dissent occurs in civil-military relations. The search generally covered works from the last 10 years, unless the research discovered a seminal, foundational article underpinning the entire research stream. Examples are Raven and French (1958), Kassing

(1997, 1998), and Morrison and Milliken (2000).

In some cases, I did not use any search engine. Rather, I simply mined the research and the literature review for source material. Kassing (2009a) provided a 3-page review of dissent literature. I also used Google Scholar’s alert function to stay current with any studies, using the term “dissent.”

Methods: Periodicity. To understand the dissent problem, undertaking a historiography of dissent within civil-military contexts since the founding of the U.S.

Army in 1775 was too broad in scope. Greater periodicity was needed. Periodization provides specificity to examine managerial and organizational discourse within a set time frame, thereby enabling analysis of the contributions of history to a distinct field (Booth

& Rowlinson, 2006). Discrete segments in history are periods that are then further defined in relationship to the issue or problem being studied. Different observers may view the significance of events in these specific periods from diverse perspectives

(Aldrich, 1999, as cited in Rowlinson et al., 2014). Applying the periodicity model to civil-military relations should account for historical context; to examine the entire history of an organizational phenomenon is often not feasible (Rowlinson et al., 2014). The object of study (dissent) must be defined within time and space, in a specific historical context, with the standard subdivision of history defined by a period, enabling analysis.

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The Cold War brought a “mingling of civilian and military leaders” within the course of policy-making processes, often poising the groups against one another. The end of World War II was widely recognized by historians as the “end of an era” in good civil- military relations, with the support of civilian decisions no longer assured (Weigley,

1993, p. 56). No other period within the history of civil-military conflict in the United

States experienced more dissent than the Truman administration; this period was a pivotal turning point in modern American history (Pierpaoli, 2000). No other president dealt with more military dissent: the use of the atomic bomb on Japan, desegregation of the military, conduct of war, and removal of the famous General MacArthur (McCullough, 1992).

Military dissent within President Harry S. Truman’s era represented the periodicity necessary to study dissent.

The focus of the study was how dissent occurs within the context of civil-military relations at senior levels of the U.S. government, particularly in events historically proven to result in positive outcomes. In this study, the focus was the desegregation of the U.S. Army. The result was a thick, rich description of how the dissent process happens within these hierarchical and power-laden contexts from a period in history. The study therefore examined relevant theoretical and empirical literature on hierarchical dissent within organizations with a subsection on dissent occurring in the relations between the civil-military groups in conflict during the Truman administration, enabling examination of dissent over desegregation of the U.S. Army.

Selection of these events met several criteria within civil-military relations. First, the events had to match the conceptual framework. Second, utilizing an approach recommended by Booth and Rowlinson (2013) and Rowlinson, Hassard and Decker

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(2014), historical narratives had to match the specificity to examine the organizational discourse within a set timeframe, enabling the historical contribution to academic theory.

Finally, the events had to be applicable to dissent in modern civil-military relations.

After gathering peer-reviewed articles on dissent and settling on the Truman period for the periodicity, I turned to a search for instances of dissent over desegregation within civil-military relations. As is the case with dissent, there is no central repository for desegregation in civil-military contexts. I broadened the search and started with biographies of Truman by McCullough (1992) and Haynes (1999), the latter a suggestion from Dr. David Schwandt of my dissertation committee. To establish a chronology of dissent on desegregation in the U.S. Army, I used the search term “military desegregation

Truman” in Google Scholar, and Foxholes and Color Lines (Mershon & Schlossman,

1998), a chronicle of desegregation of the military, appeared at the top of the list of 107 citations. This book fit the periodicity and, utilizing the suggestion of Dr. McGrath of my dissertation committee, I mined the references in this book to locate primary source material, quickly establishing the Truman Library archives as vital to my research effort.

The Desegregation of the Armed Forces research file12 arranged primary source material chronologically. I reviewed this material over the course of several months, finding material germane to dissent over desegregation of the U.S. Army in the period. To narrow the focus to dissent on desegregation of the U.S. Army, I then used the search engines provided by the U.S. Army War College,13 Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and the U.S.

Army Combined Arms Research Library,14 Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, making two trips

12 https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/desegregation/large/ 13 https://ahec.armywarcollege.edu/library.cfm 14 http://usacac.army.mil/organizations/cace/carl 38

to the latter to pull material not accessible online. Status as a commissioned officer in the

U.S. Army, coupled with U.S. Army Reserve affiliation as an adjunct professor for

Command and General Staff Officers’ College, enabled access to official U.S. Army repositories.15 Familiarity with both military repositories, coupled with the outstanding organization of the Truman Library online archives, enabled the gathering of a veritable plethora of data.

Methods: Practical literature. Civil-military contextual literature is offered here as a bridge between the role played by hierarchy and power in dissent within conflict and the historiography of military dissent occurring during the Truman years. This literature stream also demonstrates the impact this research has on this paper’s target audience.

Civil-military literature is narrow, focusing on control or direction of the military by civilian authorities in democratic nations (Feaver, 2007). Much of the literature is written by a military audience for a military audience. A review of germane civil-military literature served two purposes. First, civil-military contextual background is offered for the reader who may not be familiar with civil-military relations. Second, for those well versed in civil-military relations, a review of civil-military literature regarding dissent grounds the study.

One peer-reviewed journal is dedicated solely to the topic of civil-military relations in society. Armed Forces & Society is a quarterly publication with international scope, publishing articles on civil-military relations, diversity, military culture, ethics,

15 Generally, any academician can access the War College or Command and General Staff Officers’ College archives via special request. No such special permissions are required of the military to access the libraries. I have intimate, professional knowledge of U.S. Army repositories and there is no conflict of interest, as information is provided at Carlisle and Fort Leavenworth to serve the military community. See subjectivity statement in Appendix D. 39

public opinion, and conflict management. Eleven articles in my reference section were found in Armed Forces & Society, and several more were cited from the articles appearing in the journal. The U.S. Army and Department of Defense also publish several trade magazines and journals, such as Parameters16 and the Naval War College Review.

Search engines like Articles Plus and Google Scholar generally do not access the practical literature, but search engines from the U.S. Army War College and Combined

Arms Research Library do.

Chapter Organization

This chapter is organized and aligned with components of the conceptual framework in Figure 1.1. This chapter explores the theoretical and practical foundations of the framework in five parts: dissent, hierarchy, power, conflict, and civil-military literature. In many cases, the delineation between components is not clear; for example, dissent literature may also cover power, hierarchy, or both. The map in Figure 2.1 is provided to organize the literature. The closing sections of the chapter discuss the historiography approach to research, inferences for the current study, and the study’s theoretical framework.

16 According to its masthead, Parameters is a refereed journal of ideas and issues. It provides a forum for mature thought on the art and science of land warfare, joint and combined matters, national and international security affairs, military strategy, military leadership and management, military history, ethics, and other topics of significant and current interest to the U.S. Army and the Department of Defense. It serves as a vehicle for continuing the education and professional development of graduates of the U.S. Army War College and other senior military officers, as well as members of government and academia concerned with national security affairs (https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/MastMission.cfm). 40

Figure 2.1. Literature review map. Civil-military literature is italicized.

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Dissent

Origins of Seminal Dissent Research

Organizational dissent occurs when there is an expression of disagreement or contradictory opinions that result from feeling apart from an organization (Kassing,

1998). Initial framing of Kassing’s 1998 typology originated from Tompkins and

Cheney’s (1985) theory of unobtrusive control, the theory of independent-mindedness from Gorden and Infante (1987), and Hirschman’s (1970) study of employee dissatisfaction.

Tompkins and Cheney (1985) studied leaders’ organizational control of employees in subtle ways in a theory called “unobtrusive control.” Control mechanisms include power displays, flat hierarchies, and social aspects of human interaction in the workplace; a flatter hierarchy actually increases the amount of power to control those in leadership positions. A Google Scholar search in July 2017 revealed 567 citations for this work. For Kassing (1998), the theory of unobtrusive control contributes to dissent by framing dissent, the theory implying that dissent occurs when individuals fail to adopt organizational decisions and do not conform. “They posited this occurs when employees experience a discrepancy between the current and desired state of affairs” (Kassing, 1998, p. 6).

Gorden and Infante’s (1987) theory of independent-mindedness holds that corporate productivity is enhanced when organizations nurture employee independent‐mindedness. An argumentative‐low verbally aggressive organizational communication climate creates the freedom that nurtures independent‐mindedness. The researchers studied 131 superior‐subordinate dyads in large organizations. “Management

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by argument” (Gorden & Infante, 1987, p. 150) entails weaving communication practices like dissent, argumentation, and dialogue (Kassing, 1998, p. 7). However, Kassing (1998) recognized that “possible flaws exist” (p. 7) because the variables of argumentiveness, verbal aggressiveness, and affirmation are narrow, even if there is merit in the superior- subordinate hierarchical exchanges.

Hirschman (1970) examined employee reaction to deterioration in business firms and dissatisfaction with organizations and found that employees and dissatisfied customers either quit or voiced dissatisfaction. This exit-voice-loyalty model of dissatisfaction provided a model for Kassing (1998) to interpret possible variations in employee dissent. However, Kassing (1998) admitted that dissatisfaction and dissent are

“related but not synonymous” (p. 8). Dissatisfaction happens when employees recognize their desired state differs from the actual state. Dissatisfaction may last longer than dissent, and employees can be dissatisfied and not express dissent. Dissent is the communicative reaction to employees feeling apart from the organization (Kassing,

1998).

Much of Kassing’s subsequent work is reviewed in the following sections as it concerns hierarchy or power. However, it is worth noting here that Kassing’s (1998) basic definition of dissent as the expression of disagreement or contradictory opinion that results from feeling apart from an organization remained unchanged throughout his more than 40 works on dissent published from 1997 to 2017. For example, Kassing (2009b) referred to dissent as involving “the expression of disagreement or contrary opinions about workplace policies and practices” (p. 314). Kassing researched dissent as a response to individual factors (Kassing & Avtgis, 1999), relational factors (1998, 2000,

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2007), and organizational factors (1998, 2000, 2006), but his definition remained unchanged. Kassing (2009a, 2009b) added some research to the organizational benefits of dissent in studying repetitious dissent and circumvention, noting quantitatively that dissent provides valuable feedback about flawed organizational practices and policies and that dissent can be used by organizations to measure employee satisfaction. In studying employee circumvention,17 Kassing again grounded his work in Hirschman (1970) and

Gorden (1988). Kassing improved upon Hirschman’s (1970) study on employee voice response to dissatisfaction, positing that employee responses to dissatisfaction consist of constructive responses of voice and loyalty or destructive responses of neglect and quitting. Finding evidence of circumvention leading to relational and organizational benefits in some cases (Kassing, 2007), Kassing used a survey of employees in service, sales, law enforcement, and military fields to determine the reasons for employee circumvention (Kassing, 2009b). Improving upon Gorden’s (1988) typology of employee voice of dissatisfaction in four quadrants (active constructive, passive constructive, active destructive, and passive destructive), Kassing (2009b) found that employees frame dissent and circumvention through supervisor inaction, performance, and indiscretion.

Pointing to power and hierarchy, Kassing noted that employees practice circumvention while reflecting on the chain of command within their organization and the unmistakably cemented role of supervisors in that hierarchy (Kassing, 2009b, p. 330). In other words, dissent is an employee reaction based on the employee’s perceptions, framing the supervisor along a constructive/destructive continuum.

17 Circumvention is defined as dissenting by going around or above one’s supervisor (Kassing, 2009b, p. 311). 44

Definition in Research Literature

The organizational dissent literature is based on the work of Kassing (1998), which views dissent as the expression of disagreement or contrary opinions about workplace policies and practices. However, dissent research has evolved from Kassing.

Berg (2011) built on Kassing’s work, further theorizing about dissent by expanding on the effects of hierarchy and power in defining dissent. Appearing in the

Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, Berg’s “Dissent: An Intergroup

Perspective” concurred with Kassing (1997, 2000, 2009a) in that most textbooks on groups and organizations devote “significant attention to research on conformity, norms and obedience” (Berg, 2011, p. 51). Jetten and Hornsey (2014) agreed, finding that classic studies in social psychology focus on conformity and “pressures for unanimity,” not dissent (p. 463). However, Berg departed from Kassing’s (2009a) quantitative research studying individual workplace dissent. Berg (2011) noted that most research has not focused on a “discussion of dissent in groups” (p. 51). Studying and defining dissent in intragroup perspectives in organizational and social psychology, Berg described the risk dissent entails while studying dissent in three different social systems, including the military. Berg (2011) grounded his organizational psychological study of dissent in the conflict literature of Coser (1956), characterizing dissent in groups as “a normal, nonpathological process that along with conformity contributes to the healthy functioning of these organizations” (Berg, 2011, p. 51). Characterizing groups, especially those with power in the hierarchy of a social organization, as establishing the foundation of dissent when their view of the world is imposed on others, Berg (2011) defined dissent as

the assertion by a lower power group that a higher power group has come to believe that its partial, bounded views of the world are complete and universal. 45

Dissent is a protest against the higher power group’s isolation from the experience of the other groups in its organizational environment, groups on which it depends and who in turn depend upon it. (p. 53)

Kassing (1998, 2008, 2009a) characterized dissent as expressing dissatisfaction with supervisors, but to Berg (2011), dissent is a protest against the upper group’s isolation. Berg (2011) built on Kassing (1998, 2008, 2009a) by characterizing the role hierarchies and power play as both stifling and contributing to dissent, grounding his findings in conflict literature, as discussed later in this chapter. Berg’s (2011) contribution also stems from his focus on group interactions as a way to advance the definition of dissent.

The social, group concept of dissent is important to this research, as the focus of this study was on how dissent happens within the civil-military relations group, not lone dissent. Nonetheless, research on lone dissent contributes to the overall definition of dissent in Berg’s (2011) research. Lammers (1969) suggested that organizational sociology steer towards studying the “who” dissents question, pointing to small divisions of dissenters within the conflict. For example, in movements to secede or seize power, there is usually a small group of conspirators who seek mass support only after the initiation of their coup (Lammers, 1969, p. 563). More recent dissent theorists have offered a slightly different approach to the organizational perspective: The lone dissenter is generally a representative of a larger greater group of dissenters seeking greater support for their cause (Kassing & Anderson, 2014). “Lone dissenter” research is limited, but some sociological literature exists studying lone dissent in children’s groups or

Supreme Court decisions. In the latter case, Granberg and Bartels (2005) found that

Supreme Court cases with dissent are more likely to occur by votes of 7-2, rather than 8-

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1, concluding that social pressures to conform make it very difficult to be a lone dissenter.18

Kassing and Kava (2013) found quantitatively that dissent is ultimately a social expression; most of Kassing’s work does not support the lone dissenter approach. Dissent is social, with employees preferring to use prosocial tactics early on in the dissent expression (Kassing & Kava, 2013, p. 48). Other researchers have viewed lone dissenters as ultimately social. One of the strengths of creative solutions in groups is organizing conflicts and exposing the group to a lone dissenter who stimulates alternative thinking

(Levi, 2007, p. 207).

More recent literature has also focused on the group aspect of dissent. Jetten and

Hornsey (2014) studied deviance and dissent in groups, defining dissent as the expression of disagreement with group norms, group action, or group decision. Like Berg (2011),

Jetten and Hornsey (2014) based their research in social psychology. Like Levy (2014),

Jetten and Hornsey (2014) characterized the lone dissenter as ultimately social—and beneficial. Even though lone dissenters are often “perceived as troublemakers, these individuals can also be the most admired members in the group,” contributing the most to group goals (p. 462). Jetten and Hornsey (2014) also pointed to the conflict occurring within and among groups as members take stock of how much others identify with the group, revealing conflict in degrees of conformity, joining Berg (2011) in citing the merits of Coser’s earlier research.

18 I alluded to the Granberg and Bartels (2005) research earlier in the chapter, noting that a search of dissent in ProQuest revealed thousands of returns in the constitutional law field. This was one case where the broad search proved fruitful. 47

One of the more recent books on dissent is Young’s (2015) Dissent: The History of an American Idea. At over 600 pages, it is a long yet incomplete history of dissent in the United States because it omits much of the more well-known dissent events discussed earlier in chapter 1. There is not much theoretical discussion on dissent. Nonetheless,

Young grounds the discussion in historical precedents, and the book therefore has some value to this research when the historiography of dissent is concerned. Young (2015) also characterized dissent within group contexts. “On the broadest level, dissent is going against the grain, . . . speaking out, . . . protesting against what is, . . . often by a minority group unhappy with majority opinion and rule” (Young, 2015, p. 3). Young (2015) defined dissent as an essential part of what it means to be American (a contention that international readers probably do not support), playing a central role in U.S. history.

Dissent is going against the grain in a two-step process: disagreement and voicing that disagreement, but what it is after that remains unclear. As demonstrated later in this chapter, dissent played a central role in the history of Eastern European countries (Falk,

2011); the United States does not have a monopoly on dissent, as Young (2015) held.

In accordance with the preceding discussion of the literature on dissent based in

Kassing (1998) and Berg (2011), this study used the following definition of dissent: The expression of contradictory opinion about workplace policies and practices (Kassing,

1998). It is also “assertion by a lower power group that a higher power group has come to believe that its partial, bounded views of the world are complete and universal. It is a protest against the higher power group’s isolation from the experience of the other groups in its organizational environment, groups on which it depends and who in turn

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depend upon it” (Berg, 2011, p. 53). It is going against the grain and voicing that disagreement (Young, 2015, p. 3).

We turn now to a discussion of the literature regarding dissent and hierarchy.

Hierarchy and Dissent

Definition

Hierarchy is one of two common elements applicable to dissent environments and organizational contexts, with the other element being power (Kassing & Anderson,

2014). An Articles Plus search on “dissent hierarchy” returned very little empirical or theoretical work, so researchers must look deeper within the literature for definitions.

Theorists have defined the hierarchical element of dissent through study of superior- subordinate relationships, such as supervisor-employee (Goldman & Myers, 2015;

Humphreys et al., 2013; Kassing, 1998, 2008, 2009a, 2009b; Kassing & Kava, 2013), workshop facilitator-participant (Scott, Allen, Bonilla, Baran, & Murphy, 2013), coach- athlete (Kassing & Anderson, 2014), family parent-superior child-subordinate (Buckner et al., 2013), or decision maker-uninformed implementer (Landier et al., 2009; Spielberg,

1998).

This research adopted the definition of Berg (2011) that a hierarchy exists when there are organizational or structural power and authority differences between groups.

Those at the top of the hierarchy have more power to act and to impose their view of the world on those lower in the hierarchy. Top groups in organizations are likely to be encased in their views of the world when groups below withhold negative feedback because they feel vulnerable to the displeasure of the more powerful groups.

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Within this hierarchical relationship, communication (usually) by voice (Morrison

& Milliken, 2000) occurs, enabling dissent to flow upward. The dissent-dialogue generally flows up the hierarchy and is especially prevalent in organizations with established hierarchies, like the military (Jetten & Hornsey, 2014; Kassing & Kava, 2013;

Owens, 2012). An example of voice communication in dissent hierarchies occurred in the movie Saving Private Ryan. In the movie, Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) leads a squad of men behind enemy lines to rescue a soldier who the chief of staff of the U.S. Army discovered had three brothers killed in earlier battles. The squad dissents to Captain

Miller over the fact that they have to risk their lives for someone they don’t even know:

Private Jackson: Well, from my way of thinking, sir, this entire mission is a serious misallocation of valuable military resources. Captain Miller: Yeah. Go on. Private Jackson: Well, it seems to me, sir, that God gave me a special gift, made me a fine instrument of warfare. Captain Miller: Reiben, pay attention. Now, this is the way to gripe. Continue, Jackson. Private Jackson: Well, what I mean by that, sir, is . . . if you was to put me and this here sniper rifle anywhere up to and including one mile of Adolf Hitler with a clear line of sight, sir . . . pack your bags, fellas, war’s over. Amen. Private Reiben: Oh, that’s brilliant, bumpkin. Hey, so, Captain, what about you? I mean, you don’t gripe at all? Captain Miller: I don’t gripe to you, Reiben. I’m a captain. There’s a chain of command. Gripes go up, not down. Always up. You gripe to me, I gripe to my superior officer, so on, so on, and so on. I don’t gripe to you. I don’t gripe in front of you. You should know that as a Ranger. Private Reiben: I’m sorry, sir, but uh . . . let’s say you weren’t a captain, or maybe I was a major. What would you say then? Captain Miller: Well, in that case . . . I’d say, “This is an excellent mission, sir, with an extremely valuable objective, sir, worthy of my best efforts, sir. Moreover . . . I feel heartfelt sorrow for the mother of Private James Ryan and am willing to lay down my life and the lives of my men—especially you, Reiben—to ease her suffering.” (Spielberg, 1998)

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Captain Miller created what Scott et al. (2013) referred to as feedback in a conflict-free zone. Dissent, in the form of feedback, occurs when the lower group perceives the environment is safe and free from conflict. The soldiers respected and appeared to enjoy working with Captain Miller. Conflict-free zones enable the feedback exchange at the higher group’s request (Scott et al., 2013), as noted when Captain Miller told Private Jackson “to continue.” Most theorists characterize hierarchical relationships within superior-subordinate themes. Landier et al. (2009) modeled an organization as a two-agent hierarchy, with a decision maker empowered to select projects and determine resources and an uninformed implementer responsible for execution. Employees often do not feel comfortable raising issues up the hierarchy, unless there is a safe zone within the hierarchy, or supervisors establish the conditions for employees to dissent (Milliken et al., 2003).

Feedback and the Hierarchy Principle

Feedback is an important part of dissent in hierarchies. Berg (2011) admitted in the introduction of Dissent: An Intergroup Perspective that his focus was groups and organizations that tend toward being social systems with a dominant and well-defined hierarchy. Berg defined the role of hierarchy as dissent through feedback and information flow. In other words, a “hierarchy principle” applies in which top groups in the hierarchy are encased in their views of the world and groups below them withhold feedback because they feel threatened (Berg, 2011). Top groups in organizations understand this principle but do not know how to elicit feedback. In their frustration, they will go to a lower group and simply ask for it.

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The implication of this principle is that when a top group seeks information from a lower power group it must first convene the group (or a substantial number of representatives from this group), providing it with safe and anonymous space in which to consider and respond to a request for information. (Berg, 2011, p. 60)

Berg called this “buttonholing,” using hierarchical relationships to ask a member of a lower group “how things are going.” Berg proposed that this is not an effective means of getting critical feedback (though it can look and even feel good) because the question is asked across an intergroup boundary and is subject to all the filters and cognitive interpretations that characterize any cross-group communication, especially communication across hierarchical groups. Morrison and Milliken (2000) held that as employees progress up the hierarchy, they become removed from the rank and file and make generalizations about employees. Researching organizational silence, Morrison and

Milliken also examined the lower end of the hierarchy, the rank and file employee, finding that fear of giving feedback or of dissent prevents the social aspects of organizational development from occurring. Yet Morrison and Milliken (2000) also noted that those high in the hierarchy believe that because they are supervisors, they know best, and subsequently close themselves off from others. Van Dijk (2008) likewise held that the hierarchy controls 78% of the discourse, dominating superior-subordinate communications, and through their monopoly of communication, top groups in the hierarchy continue to be encased in their views of the world and impose their view on lower groups, a finding supporting the hierarchy principle.

Another aspect of Morrison and Milliken’s (2000) research was sensemaking, a social aspect or process by which groups detect ambiguous shifts in their environments and interpret emergent events. Employees form shared beliefs “through processes of information sharing, social contagion, and collective sensemaking” (Milliken et al., 2003,

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p. 1457). Dissent requires sensemaking and is social, unfolding in sequential, social order in the context of other human actions that people try and make sense of, often resulting in written or spoken language given the social circumstances (Scott et al., 2013; Weick,

1995).

Grint and Scholes (2008) addressed the importance of feedback within the dissent-hierarchy context. Feedback is critical for those groups at the top of the hierarchy, especially in today’s global, tech-savvy organization or the military. The problem is a

“poverty of feedback” in relations between hierarchies and feedback. The hierarchical position is inversely related to the quality of feedback received (Grint & Scholes, 2008).

Constructive dissent shifts to destructive consent. As employees go up the hierarchy, the quality of feedback goes down, as employees who provide feedback reflect their own interests and not those of the organization. The authors found the correlation a key relationship between dissent and hierarchical position, characterizing feedback as a form of dissent, but failed to take the relationship between the two further.

The discussion of feedback progressed in 2011 with Berg, who suggested that dissent as feedback can modernize an organization. “Dissent can provide the corrective feedback that allows a group or organization to adapt and innovate. Specifically, dissent is an explicit or implicit critique of how those in authority exercise that authority” (Berg,

2011, p. 57).

Other authors have explored feedback as constructive dissent within dissent- hierarchy relationships, yet have argued that dissent occurs in the absence of conflict, not because of it. Dissent, in the form of feedback, occurs when the lower group perceives the environment is safe and free from conflict. Conflict-free zones enable the feedback

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exchange at the higher group’s request, enabled in feedback loops (Scott et al., 2013).

Scott et al. studied voice and dissent as organizational enablers, noting that as early as

1985, Redding suggested that dissent allows for corrective feedback, which improves organizational development and group behavior. The Scott group approach appears more contextual (with the dissenter feeling that the conditions of safety exist in organizational contexts) rather than organizational (with the hierarchical organizational structure establishing safe zones for employees), as Berg (2011) held. Humphreys et al. (2013) concurred with Scott et al. that the climate of silence is a state where collective beliefs hold that voice is dangerous and futile due in part to low safety and efficacy. In these works, one can discern aspects of Morrison and Milliken’s work from a decade earlier.

Organizational silence occurs when speaking up about problems is not worth the effort or voicing one’s opinions and concerns is dangerous (Morrison & Milliken, 2000). Berg

(2011) and Scott et al. (2013) concurred about the danger, but took the research further in hierarchies, noting that dissent occurs when the lower group perceives there is a safe haven for voice.

Humphreys et al. (2013) described dissent voice as stifled by the hierarchy. Grint and Scholes (2008) pointed to feedback within dissent as vocal attempts to improve an organization. Another view was that voice is best withheld, since the dissenting employee risks disenfranchisement by upper management (Berg, 2011).

Measuring Dissent in Hierarchies

Grint and Scholes (2008) discussed the difficulty those at the top of the hierarchy face in securing feedback valuable to the organization. They suggested dissent arises from the social and positional nature of knowledge (wherein those at the top think they

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know more). Hierarchical relationships between employer and employee point to a quantitative hierarchical, superior-subordinate dissent scale, which might prove useful in research and practice.

In other words, employers might find a measurement scale of employee dissent useful in measuring dissent as a means of understanding the dialogue between employee and employer, especially as employers seek more democratic forms of organizing

(Kassing, 1998). Scott et al. characterized Kassing’s work as having “not involved any context specific measurement” (Scott et al., 2013, p. 388). However, this view is at odds with established organizational dissent-enabling scales, which the authors later noted were in part developed by Kassing, who in 1998 proposed the Organizational Dissent

Scale (ODS). The ODS is a “measure for operationalizing how employees verbally express their contradictory opinions and disagreements about organizational phenomena”

(Kassing, 1998, p. 193).

Developing a measurement instrument to assess how employees dissent in the workplace provides a basis for assessing how employees combat psychological and political constraints within their organizations (Kassing, 1998). To Kassing (1998), the hierarchy sets restrictive practices that stifle dissent. According to Kassing, before 1998 researchers criticized organizational dominance and hegemonic practices primarily through organizational narratives that associated dissent with voice and whistle-blowing.

ODS provides a better model, revealing and measuring dissent as occurring along three dimensions: articulated, antagonistic (latent), and displaced (Kassing, 1998). While

Kassing (1998, 2008, 2009a; Kassing & Kava, 2013) and Scott et al. (2013) concurred on

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hierarchy’s importance in the dissent, they were at opposite ends of the spectrum on how it revealed itself, as well as how (or if) it is measured.

Organizations gravitate toward hierarchical modes of organizing, and organizations are growing larger, requiring more complex administrative branches that in turn need more leaders. The measure of organizational dissent should reflect the political, moral, and psychological issues present in modern organizations. Measuring dissent becomes even more difficult given the hierarchical complexities (Kassing, 1998, p. 187).

Those at the top of the hierarchy employ more control mechanisms to monitor an ever- increasing number of employee dissent events. In other words, dissent may be an indication of employee participation in the traditional, hierarchical organization as much as in a democratic, flatter, more innovative and participative organization (Kassing, 1998, p. 187; Grint & Scholes, 2008).

Recognizing that dissent must flow upward to work, Kassing and Kava (2013) updated the ODS with the Upward Dissent Scale (UDS). Upward dissent is expressing or vocalizing concerns upward, up the chain of command, to a supervisor, and can be quantified. The UDS requires a hierarchy (Kassing & Kava, 2013). Employees generally rely on upward dissent tactics to influence a situation; hence, hierarchy is the lynchpin to dissent (Kassing, 2009a, 2009b). The UDS improved upon the ODS in that it recognizes the importance of hierarchy, expanding a quantitative measure of dissent to a multidimensional 20-item scale. The ODS measures employee expression of dissent not only in hierarchies, but also laterally and externally (dissent to friends/family and those outside the organization). The ODS is broad, measured by the audience to whom

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employees dissent. The UDS is narrow, measuring the degree to which employees use various upward dissent strategies (Kassing & Kava, 2013, p. 47).

The Social Aspect of Dissent in a Hierarchy

The ODS and UDS contributed to research of dissent typologies: upward, lateral, and displaced (outward) dissent. Those at the top of the hierarchy hear upward dissent.

Upward dissent is expressed to management, up the hierarchy. The UDS found that supervisors hear dissent in high-commitment, high-freedom-of-speech organizations.

Upward dissent is a social tactic involving solution presentation, factual appeal, repetition, and circumvention, which may ultimately devolve into an antisocial tactic such as resignation (Kassing 1997, 1998, 2009a, 2009b; Kassing & Anderson, 2014).

Lateral dissent is the expression of dissent to coworkers. Holding nonmanagement positions and possessing less work experience are associated with increased expressions of lateral dissent, which occurs when opportunities to share dissent with management are blocked (Kassing, 1998; Kassing & Armstrong, 2002). External organizational groups hear displaced dissent,19 the expression of disagreement or contradictory opinions about workplace policies and practices to friends, family, and other people outside of one’s formal organization (Kassing, 1998; Kassing & Anderson, 2014). Humphreys et al.

(2013) examined dissent hierarchy within a historical example, specifically the miners’ rebellion during the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921, in lateral and upward typologies.

19 Displaced dissent was also called “outward” dissent by Kassing (2009b), who used the terms interchangeably in his more recent research. Kassing labeled dissent expressed outwardly as “displaced,” finding in 1998 that it does not reach effective audiences that can respond to the issue of the dissent. In other words, dissent is displaced because the external entity lacks the power to influence the organizational adjustment. His more recent research has backtracked from the lack of influence of external parties somewhat, suggesting in 2013 that employees feel external dissent tactics are more effective “early on” (Kassing & Kava, 2013, p. 48). 57

Slater (2009) did not rule out studying lateral dissent, supported by Kassing and

Anderson (2014), holding that employees dissent laterally (to colleagues) when they hold no power, but it is not an effective method of dissent. Van Dijk (2008) took an opposing view in that low-level employees have power, but it is organizationally misplaced.

Discourse focuses on the superior and, whether positive or negative, reinforces existing power structures. Superiors are legitimatized. The rank and file are restricted from improving their lot (Van Dijk, 2008, p. 53).

Goldman and Myers (2015) studied employee assimilation in upward, lateral, and displaced dissent contexts, drawing heavily on Kassing’s typology. Measuring assimilation (employee familiarity with coworkers and supervisors, involvement, competency, and role) in the three typologies, Goldman and Myers (2015) supported

Kassing’s (1998, 2009a) contention that dissent is measurable and quantifiable.

Assimilation relates negatively to lateral dissent and positively to upward dissent.

Goldman and Myers (2015) also advanced the discussion of dissent as ultimately a social construct, requiring a hierarchy; when employees interact with peers, they are more likely to share criticisms and dissent, supporting Kassing’s (2000) earlier research that the higher the quality of the relationship between supervisor and employee, the higher the frequency of upward dissent expression.

Dissent plays a vital role in organizational group development (Berg, 2011;

Goldman & Myers, 2015; Kassing, 1997; Landier et al., 2009; Whelan, 2013). Berg

(2011) simply stated that “dissent plays a crucial role in the vitality of all human groups”

(p. 50). Dissent is ultimately a social, conflictual construct, occurring naturally (Berg,

2011; Kassing, 1997, 2000, 2002). Morrison and Milliken (2000), Milliken et al. (2003),

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and Humphreys et al. (2013) joined a growing body of researchers studying dissent in groups, finding that upward dissent positively impacts groups and organizations, particularly when employees are free to use their voice to superiors. In contrast, restrictions on employee voice, or dissent, “result in organizational dysfunction, . . . seizure of power, and suspension of routines” (Land, 2007, as cited in Humphreys et al.,

2013, p. 311). Kassing (1997, 2011, 2014) argued that dissent occurs naturally in organizational group development because dissenters improve the situation by targeting leaders or mangers empowered to enact change. Humphreys et al. (2013) and Scott et al.

(2013) departed from the view of dissent as naturally occurring, holding that the top group must establish the dissent conditions; hierarchy influences social conditions that enable or stifle employee voice. Grint and Scholes’ (2008) earlier research took another view, with the hierarchy stifling the social aspect of dissent. Kassing concluded that hierarchies exist—and are almost required for dissent to occur—and employees prefer to use prosocial dissent tactics in upward dissent that goes up the chain within an organization (Kassing & Kava, 2013).

Otken and Cenkci (2015) researched social experiences, concluding that experiences in childhood and development of personality traits contribute to dissent.

Otken and Cenkci’s theoretical framework was based on Kassing’s (1997) definition of hierarchical dissent and added personality trait theory as occurring within hierarchies.

Employees chose dissent strategies through a complex set of trait factors related to hierarchical experience (Otken & Cenkci, 2015, p. 2). The authors supported Kassing’s

(2008) conclusion that dissent is a very personalized act that requires employees to evaluate both their character and understanding of their social and organizational

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standing at work (Otken & Cenkci, 2015, p. 4). They also supported Kassing’s (1998)

ODS as a measurement tool quantifying organizational dissent.

Power and Dissent

Definition

Interactions within organizations occur naturally, allowing those in power to exert unchecked control over members and make changes (Tompkins & Cheney, 1985).

“Organizational power is the ability or capacity of a person to control the contributions of others toward a goal” (McPhee & Tompkins, 1985, p. 180). Kassing (1997, 1998, 2009a,

2009b) did not directly define power, but his research drew heavily on Tompkins and

Cheney (1985) in explaining power in dissent. Employees sacrifice some power when they join an organization, with “members accepting incentives, typically wages and salaries, in exchange for adhering to organizational premises” (Kassing, 1997, p. 319).

Power is embedded in the organization’s structure. Kassing’s early research suggested that employees experience incongruence over the organization’s power that keeps employees from enacting their own values within the organization. To Kassing (1997), empowered employees may engage in more dissent, with the effectiveness of the dissent being directly proportional to the opportunities provided by the organization for employees to provide their opinions.

Control also figures prominently in power definitions within conflictual contexts.

Coser (1957), a social conflict theorist, defined power as access to or control over material resources; dissent is a contest for the power. Van Dijk (2008) held that resources also include symbolic resources such as knowledge and notoriety. Dissent occurs over

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access to power. However, Van Dijk (2008) also held that power should be defined as

“access to and control over the public discourse” (p. 14), supporting the view of Weick,

Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld (2005), who concluded that managing public discourse enables construction of a social reality, controlling who talks to whom and what actions are permitted.

Lammers (1967) characterized power as something dissenters unite behind. Like

Coser (1957), Lammers (1967) viewed dissent as the struggle over power, status, claims, and values. Dissent is measured in power terms, occurring around a shared value, a goal, around which members unite to determine a course of action and their structure. Power leads to hierarchical position in Lammers’ model and can be measured quantitatively.

If Lammers (1967) defined power as uniting dissenters, something dissenters strive for, Kassing defined power as embedded in organizational structure, worthy of study within the superior-subordinate relationship as an additional “locus of dissent”

(Kassing & Anderson, 2014). “Power underpins communication in . . . superior- subordinate relationships” (Kassing & Anderson, 2014, p. 175), which supports Van

Dijk’s (2008) view that power is access to and control over the discourse, suggesting those in hierarchies who control dissent, or establish safe havens for dissent, have the most power.

Kassing and Anderson (2014) also described dissent power as “conceptualized in

French and Raven’s 1959 typology” (p. 176). Both Raven and French (1958) and Yukl and Falbe (1990) described power in six forms between an agent and a recipient: reward power, coercive power, legitimate power, expert power, informational power, and referent power. In reward power, the target person complies in order to obtain rewards he

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or she believes are controlled by the agent. In coercive power, the target person complies in order to avoid punishments he or she believes are controlled by the agent. In legitimate power events, the target person complies because he or she believes the agent has the right to make the request and the target person has the obligation to comply. Within expert power occurrences, the target person complies because he or she believes that the agent has special knowledge about the best way to do something. Informational power is controlling the information others need. Finally, in referent power events, the target person complies because he or she admires or identifies with the agent and wants to gain the agent’s approval (Raven & French, 1958; Yukl, 2013). To Kassing and Anderson

(2014), dissenters don’t seek power necessarily based on Lammers’ (1967) view; rather, abuse of power by those at the top of the hierarchy can form the impetus for dissent expression. Kassing and Anderson’s (2014) view was that dissenters make a choice to dissent based on their perception that the hierarchy uses power illegitimately—the agent does not have the right to make the request.

Berg (2011) supported the access to discourse definition of power as something used by the hierarchy to impose their views on the world, to shape the discourse much as a parent imposes family rules to guide children toward a particular, preferred parental view:

But the power difference between the two groups means that while the children might wish to construct family rules that serve an adolescent view of the world, they do not have the power and authority to do so. The parents have the power (and, some might argue, the responsibility) to construct family rules that serve their possibly more mature parental worldview. This power together with their worldview and their inevitable separation from the adolescent perspective (including their own from years past) provides the impetus for the dissent. (Berg, 2011, p. 7)

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Extrapolating the parent-child analogy to organizational research, Berg noted that power is something the lower hierarchical group dissents “over,” such as less powerful groups dissenting over the misguided use of power by higher groups. The difference in power between the groups leads to dissent.

This study adopted the definition of power based on the work of Coser (1957) and

Van Dijk (2008) as access to and control over material resources and symbolic resources such as access to public discourse, the power to control people’s behavior as either formal authority or informal influence.

Supervisory Power and Dissent

Kassing reversed the relationship, from power as a tool used by managers to shape worldview in dissent events to power as something taken into consideration by the dissenter; dissent is a two-step process involving the decision to act and the act itself

(Kassing, 2009b). When so much power is present, dissenters often remain silent

(Kassing, 2008), which is their choice; the dissenter must weigh the risk to dissent versus the cost. Power has the potential to shape what people will accept through “control over cues, who talks to whom, proffered identities, criteria for plausible stories, actions permitted and disallowed, and histories and retrospect that are singled out” (Weick et al.,

2005, p. 418). Weick et al. suggested that future research pay more attention to expressions of power in terms of organizational influences, offering a potential area for dissent theory research.

Although not a dissent researcher, Argyris (1977) noted that powerful norms and defensive routines within organizations often prevent employees from saying what they know. In other words, employees take into account their perception of higher authority’s

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power in their decision to dissent. Those with power use it to stifle dissent; dissent is treated by leaders as threatening the status quo and as something to be silenced (Milliken et al., 2003). Phillips (2015) took a dialogic, conditional view, arguing that dissent emerges out of unique prior conditions “in which the coherence of dominant discourses is momentarily opened for contest” (p. 60). Some researchers supported a dissent power in the sense that those with power in the hierarchy establish the conditions for dissent to be heard, to enable dissent (Humphreys et al., 2013; Kassing, 1997, 1998; Scott et al., 2013;

Van Dijk, 2008), and other researchers viewed power in the Paulo Frierian (1968) sense, with dissent a struggle for the power to be heard (Berg, 2011; Kassing & Anderson,

2014; Lammers, 1967; Milliken et al., 2003; Tompkins & Cheney, 1985). Phillips’

(2015) view fell in the middle.

In upward dissent, employees have some power, and when they have power, they are more likely to dissent and dissent effectively (Kassing & Anderson, 2014). Most importantly, the top hierarchical group is more inclined to respond to dissent due to power in upward dissent (Kassing & Armstrong, 2002), a departure from the view of Van

Dijk (2008). Power is something to be gained through dissent, protest, and outright mutiny; protest movements often fall short because they are expressionary collectives airing discontent, lacking power (Lammers, 1969). In Lammers’ view, lack of power means dissent strategies will fail; he proposed a mathematical formula between outcome and power in dissent events (Lammers, 1969, p. 568). Lammers lamented the fact that

1960s research focused on “horizontal conflict,” dissent among groups. Lammers urged future researchers to examine what he called vertical conflict, the use of power between the “ruled and ruled” (Lammers, 1969, p. 558).

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Authors have treated dissent-power’s relationship to hierarchy differently as well.

As noted previously, dissent is a social aspect occurring in organizations. Morrison and

Milliken (2000), although focused on organizational silence, noted that power is important when the top of the hierarchy uses communicative efforts to create and sustain power and authority. Dissent occurs when these statements are rude, “bossy,” or micromanaging (Kassing, 2009b). Dissent usurps the hierarchy when employees circumvent the chain of command, since the supervisor’s role and power are “cemented

. . . in that hierarchy” (Kassing, 2009b, p. 330). Humphreys et al. (2013) similarly noted that some organizations treat the employer-employee relationship as master-servant. In these cases, an “injustice mindset” occurs as the relationship between superior and subordinate is no longer in equilibrium (Humphreys et al., 2013), similar to the view of

Van Dijk (2008). However, if the disequilibrium in power continues, Humphreys et al.

(2013) subscribed to the more extreme Lammers’ (1969) view. Once psychological splitting occurs, leaders and followers withdraw into their groups for reasons a bit different from Morrison and Milliken’s (2000) reasoning and put up barriers, resulting in hierarchical gaps. Management has lost the power to stop resistance. Conflict intensifies due to a power vacuum (Humphreys et al., 2013; Lammers, 1969). This is what is referred to as the “zone of dysfunction,” as irrational thinking is embedded and employees accept or tolerate unethical acts in the organization (Humphreys et al., 2013).

Berg (2011) would also agree with this characterization, defining dissent within power and hierarchies as the “assertion by a lower power group that a higher power group has come to believe that its partial, bounded views of the world are complete and universal. It is a protest against the higher power group’s isolation from the experience of the other

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groups in its organizational environment, groups on which it depends and who in turn depend upon it” (p. 53).

Conflict and Dissent

To Kassing (1998), dissent is the expression of disagreement or contradictory opinions about workplace policies and practices. Conflict occurs within the superior- subordinate relationship, leading to dissent. However, Kassing also found that dissent occurs outside of conflict, such as in dissent-triggering events. Ethical concerns, safety issues, roles, efficiencies, performance evaluations, and other work-related employee responses might trigger dissent in an upward fashion when hierarchies are present

(Kassing, 1997, 2009a; Kassing & Armstrong, 2002).

Conflict Definition

In conflict theory, an advantage gained over one group comes at the expense of the other, yet the theory holds that conflict ultimately preserves and strengthens the group. The struggles for collective goals are

more militant than conflicts over personal issues. This is because people feel greater freedom to take extreme measures when they act as representatives of a group. . . . Such action grants them a degree of respectability since they are perceived as altruistically working for others. (Nepstad, 2005, p. 338)

Social friction over hierarchy and power leads to strain and conflict (Coser, 1956).

Coser drew on seminal conflict theorists (Marx, 1847; Weber, 1922; Simmel, 1911; as cited in Coser, 1956), who concurred that dissent, social issues, interaction, power, authority, and hierarchies are vital, interrelated components in conflict theory (Coser,

1956; Powell & Robbins, 1984; Wagner-Pacifici & Hall, 2012). Social conflict theory

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components resonate well in military contexts, where power and hierarchy play vital roles. Modern military theorists recognize the role of conflict as the military subordinates itself to civilians in the hierarchical exchange of powers the civilians give to the military

(Coser, 1957; Levy, 2014). In addition, social conflict literature regarding hierarchy and power reveals that the social and interactive aspects of conflict theory emerge to play major roles in understanding dissent.

Using Coser (1957) as a base in a wide-ranging study that identified gaps in the resolution of social conflict, Wagner-Pacifici and Hall (2012) clarified and updated the definition of conflict. Noting that social conflicts run the gamut from an argument at a family dinner to wars between nations, the authors addressed power and hierarchies and modernized how conflict theory emerges as a lens. They filled in some gaps in conflict theory, too much ground to cover in a short review (Wagner-Pacifici & Hall, 2012), while pointing to a potential historiographical approach, in that to study conflict means examining the moment when a potentially historic change occurs. Oberschall (1978) noted that conflict results from purposeful interaction among two or more parties in a competitive setting, once again reinforcing social aspects: “The parties are an aggregate of individuals, such as groups, organizations, communities, and crowds, rather than single individuals” (as cited in Wagner-Pacifici & Hall, 2012, p. 182). Wagner-Pacifici and Hall suggested future studies explore dissent as an overt social conflict within geopolitical national defense arenas. This research utilized the definition of conflict based on the work of Coser (1957) and Oberschall (1978): conflict is the struggle over values and claims to scarce resources, power, and authority, the purposeful interaction among two or more parties in a competitive setting, an ultimately social aspect.

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Conflict in Hierarchy and Power

Hierarchical components of conflict theory are prevalent, often interwoven with power throughout much of Coser’s (1957) work. Military power comprised the final chapter of Coser’s book Continuities in the Study of Social Conflict (1967). Coser’s

(1957, 1967) works describe civilian power over the military and how this hierarchical relationship leads to dissent. The principal-agent hierarchy in civil-military relations drives conflict over resource competition; as in conflict theory, resources beget power

(Coser, 1957). According to Wagner-Pacifici and Hall (2012), the issue of power must be counted among the most significant regarding the resolution of social conflict.

As with the work of Schlee (2008), Lipsky and Avgar’s (2008) research is useful in that it noted the different conflict levels in organizations, but Lipsky and Avgar (2008) departed from Schlee (2008) in that they were more concerned with hierarchical levels, especially subconscious, organizational ones. Basing their study on exploring a theoretical model on communication and decision-making (Dessein, 2002; Zabojnik,

2002; as cited in Lipsky & Avgar, 2008) involving principal-agent collective decision- making and delegation within the hierarchy, Lipsky and Avgar (2008) characterized dissent as useful to provide information and credibility. They studied a hierarchical organization in a quantitative cost-benefits approach with a theoretical model of links between congruence and decision-making within principal-agent communication. Dissent fosters objective information in decision-making while giving credibility to the decision- makers’ choices. However, Lipsky and Avgar (2008) noted, dissent comes at a price, hurting motivation and impairing organizational efficiency. Dissent is optimal when information is needed and uncertainty is high. This depiction within social conflict is

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useful as we begin to introduce conflict within civil-military groups as essentially principal-agent related.

Falk’s (2011) historiography of dissent in Eastern Europe treated conflict as an environmental condition enabling dissent en masse to occur. Falk (2011) treated conflict as a meta-level enabler of dissent, viewing dissent as a subset of resistance to a higher authority. She noted that dissenters, or dissidents, authored underground encyclicals against repressive (Communist) regimes in Eastern Europe during the time of the Soviet

Union.

Otken and Cenkci’s (2015) discussion of organizational climate treated social conflict as regulated by hierarchical, organizational impositions that impeded freedom to dissent, exacerbating and bringing to the fore personality traits that lead one to dissent.

The individual’s culture, cross-referenced with the organizational culture, was raised as a variable, as were support structures. The authors used the ODS to measure upward and lateral dissent in a quantitative approach, finding that in highly formal organizations (like the military), written procedures and reliance on rules lead to conflict, which hinders

“discussion about how things should be done, and limits alternative creative solutions,” which may increase dissent (Otken & Cenkci, 2015, p. 16).

View of Conflict and Dissent as Social Constructs20

Dissent over resources is a constant element of society and a potential explanatory area for the problem when couched in terms of competition for resources. Marx (1847) noted that capitalism is based on the premise that groups have unequal access to

20 Conflict has been shown in the literature to be both social and not social. The next two sections describe the evidence for each position. I am indebted to fellow Ed.D. candidate David Jarrett for pointing this out (personal correspondence, 28 August 2017). 69

resources. Resentment and hostility result in the inequalities and inequities of hierarchy

(Coser, 1957, 1964).

Lipsky and Avgar (2008) examined workplace conflict management systems— contributing to conflict theory by examining solutions and not causes, as most of the previous works described. Portraying conflict in the workplace as ultimately a social construct, the researchers examined Fortune 100 companies’ conflict mitigation strategies. They supported Coser (1957) in noting that conflict is always present, a natural occurrence, and the top of the hierarchies should recognize it as such.

Buckner et al. (2013) indicated that conflict sets environmental conditions for familial conversation and conformity, which might also influence organizations. Whelan

(2013) portrayed conflict as “dissensus,” the antithesis of consensus in corporate social responsibility. Dissensual corporate social responsibility is a net positive dissent occurring in the conflict of oratory within public spheres organized and constructed as dissent “safe-havens” (Whelan, 2013). In promoting dissensus, Whelan (2013) took to task researchers who portray dissent as a problem, noting that these authors wrongly portray corporate social responsibility success as “non-conflictual” (p. 759).

Berg, a social psychologist, also noted that conflict is vital in enabling dissent, existing as both an enabler and component of dissent. To Berg (2011), dissent is a strong statement of conflict between groups. Conflict between groups sets the conditions for dissent, and dissent can widen the conflict (Berg, 2011). This supports the view that dissent, social issues, and social interaction are vital, interrelated components of conflict

(Coser, 1956; Powell & Robbins, 1984).

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View of Conflict as Not Social

Conflict is subconscious. Social interactions ultimately derive from subconscious experiences. Some research supports conflict as a result of personal experiences, not social interaction.

Ultimately, subconscious conflict manifestation occurs on two levels. Abend

(2008) pointed to childhood experiences manifesting themselves in interactions with opposing forces in conflict without the person’s knowledge. To Honeycutt (2003), the process is based in the subconscious, but the person becomes self-aware, imagining interactions before and after conflict episodes.

These effects are not overt, conscious reactions. Honeycutt (2003) explained how conflict persists in interpersonal communication through mental imagery and imagined interactions. Imagined interactions are covert dialogues where individuals overtly relive prior conversations and anticipate new encounters. Conflict is “kept alive in the human mind through recalling prior arguments while anticipating what may be said at future meetings” (Honeycutt, 2004, p. 3). Individuals conceptualize conflict by looking at how they think about interactions in terms of imagining what they might say based on prior encounters. Dissent is defined as inner conceptualization. Conceptualization is either conscious or subconscious—the individual is not even aware of where the imagery comes from—but the subconscious is often the more destructive in terms of conflict.

Honeycutt (2003) was most effective when supporting previous conflict theory research in interactions and subconscious conceptualization. For example, in conflict, people often dwell on previous disputes, thinking about prior conversations and injecting them into current encounters. This practice sustains conflict, as the individual, because of

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these thoughts, seeks to retaliate, potentially in dissent. Such a practice often occurs without the individual even realizing it. This is a potential area for future research and one that does not immediately fall into a hierarchy or power construct.

Honeycutt (2004, p. 14) defined argumentiveness and verbal aggression in constructive ways to address conflict, using quantitative data to support the conclusion that arguments and aggression are manifestations of conflict at opposite ends of the good/bad conflict spectrum. Focusing on the positive, Honeycutt further defined dissent as an output of conflict and refuted any previous assumption that dissent has negative connotations. Honeycutt (2003) characterized dissent as a positive contributor to conflict resolution, rooted in individual reflections over past social experiences, a conclusion that supports the view that even lone dissent has social connotations.

The Interplay of Conflict and Dissent

While all theorists have concurred that conflict and dissent share a relationship, research regarding the status of the relationship is mixed. Dissent is an output of conflict in power and hierarchy (Buckner et al., 2013; Coser, 1956, 1957, 1967; Falk, 2011; Levy,

2014; Lipsky & Avgar, 2008; Oberschall, 1978; Wagner-Pacifici & Hall, 2012; Whelan,

2013). Conflict is also an output of dissent in power and hierarchy (Gorden & Infante,

1980; Harp et al., 2010; Hollister, 2011; Kassing, 1997, 1998, 2011; Kassing & Kava,

2013; Land, 2007; Milliken et al., 2003; Millman, 2005; Moore, 2000; Morrison &

Milliken, 2000; Young, 2015). Literature has indicated that conflict plays an important role in the definition of dissent, suggesting an area for exploration in this research.

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Practical Literature: Civil-Military Relations

This study examined how dissent processes occur in civil-military relations in positive outcomes. As the historical research method examined dissent over desegregation during the Truman period of 1944 to 1950 involving subservient military group dissent over policies enacted by the political power group, a brief description and critique of the scholarly literature in civil-military relations is offered here. Civil-military contextual literature is a bridge between the role that hierarchy and power play in dissent within conflict and the historiography of military dissent occurring during the Truman years. This literature stream also demonstrates the impact of this research for this study’s target audience while providing background for those not as well versed in civil-military relations.

Civil-Military Definition

Within civil-military contexts, dissent is the vocal conflict occurring when military matters and civilian policies collide; the line separating the two groups is moved or erased (Hollister, 2011). As discussed earlier, organizational theorists have noted that dissent occurs between two groups at different levels in the hierarchy (Kassing, 2011).

Civil-military literature is complementary to the work of organizational theorists; in many cases, dissent occurs when the subservient military group disagrees with the civilian power group (Feaver, 2007, 2011; Huntington, 1957). Modern civil-military theorists consider Samuel Huntington as the dean of civil-military relations. According to

Huntington (1957), civil-military relations seeks to promote security of the nation at the

“least sacrifice of other social values.” Civil-military relations occurs between political and military groups and involves a complex balancing act (Huntington, 1957, p. 2). Due

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to the hierarchical relationship, many civil-military authors have described the civil- military relationship as “principal-agent” (Feaver, 2007; Snider 2017). The civilian group generally has the power, the military obeying the orders of higher authority in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

However, civil-military research has progressed from Huntington’s (1957) depiction of civil-military relations comprising two groups. Defining civil-military as two groups represents dated thinking, as it assumes that “two distinct bodies—the civil and the military—are necessary for conflict to arise” (Bland, 1999, p. 10). However, modern theorists have advanced Huntington’s theories by noting that there are actually three groups in the equation: the military, the political elite, and the “citizenry” (Schiff, 1995).

Recently, Saas and Hall (2016) referred to the military class, the civilian class, and the presidential administration as the three groups.21 Saas and Hall (2016) even went so far as to offer legal definitions for the separate groups, noting that military bases are distinct entities, with the “D.C. Circuit Court finding military bases are military domain segregated from public life” (p. 189).

Leaders shape member reactions to events (Coser, 1957). Horowitz and Stam

(2014) held that political executives’ life experiences in hierarchies shape their relations with the military. For example, the prior military service of senior civilians points to varying degrees of conflict with the military establishment, influencing in-office policy choices and the relationship with the military in unconscious ways (Horowitz & Stam,

2014). In other words, a prior position in the hierarchy plays a role in dissent. Literature has revealed that a person’s status as a veteran or a nonveteran within civil-military

21 D. Schwandt, personal correspondence, February 2016. I am indebted to Dr. Schwandt for this valuable point that civil-military relations actually comprises three groups. 74

contexts may lead to conflict. Regrettably, the authors drew no conclusion from

Truman’s service as a field artillery captain during World War I (Cowley, 2005).

This study adopted the definition of civil-military relations based on the work of

Burk (2002) and Saas and Hall (2016): civil-military relations are the relationship between civil society as a whole and the military organization(s) protecting it (Burk,

2002). There are three groups in the equation: the military, the political elite, and the

“citizenry,” or social group (Saas & Hall, 2016).

Historical Underpinnings of Civil-Military Dissent

The fundamental problem in modern civil-military relations is that presidents need to listen and learn from dissenting generals. Likewise, generals need to be willing to dissent, and they need to know how—but they do not (Ricks, 2014). This is surprising given that dissent in civil-military contexts has existed since the birth of the U.S. Army in

1775, when General George Washington dissented with the Continental Congress over his lack of salary (and need to personally bankroll Army operations against the Redcoats)

(Hollister, 2011).22 Senior civilian officials in government strategize with senior military officials in the nexus comprising high-level civilian-military relations, a hierarchical, power-laden relationship revolving around discourse (Snider, 2017). The role of senior military leaders is critical: “By law and precedent, they have a right to be heard” (Hooker

& Collins, 2015, p. 405). Making strategy is not a peaceful process (Huntington, 1957, as cited in Feaver, 2007; Snider, 2017).

22 Based on my 27+ years of experience as an officer in the U.S. Army, Hollister is correct in that dissent has existed in the Army, yet it has not been a significant subject of study in civil-military literature beyond some of the literature mentioned here. 75

There are numerous historical examples when lack of dissent led to negative consequences. For example, McDermott (1992) noted that the silence of high-level military and political officials during the planning for Operation Eagle Claw, the attempt to rescue Iranian hostages during the Carter presidency, doomed the operation to failure.

Each advisor to Carter drew on different historical analogies to “make his point and press his position” (McDermott, 1992, p. 246). McDermott is a political psychologist, not a civil-military expert, but her findings concern civil-military relations at high levels and are relevant here. McDermott referred to prospect theory, which holds that risks are weighed in the domain of losses as the principal seeks to return the situation to the status quo, much as gamblers who have lost the previous hand of poker double their bet to return to even. Such a risky gamble occurs where the probability of success is lower than that offered by other options, but the utility of the outcome is higher. McDermott noted that, at the outset of planning, Charles Beckwith provided advice that was ignored by those in the hierarchy. Responding to

a query from the JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] General Jones to Charles Beckwith, the man who eventually led the mission, at the outset of planning, Beckwith was asked the probability of success and the risks involved; he responded, “Sir . . . the probability of success is zero and the risks are high.” (McDermott, 1992, p. 256)

This negative historical example suggests that despite their rights to be heard, military leaders are not always listened to.

Another example of unheeded dissent leading to negative consequences is

President George W. Bush’s consensus-seeking approach in post-war Iraq (Pollack,

2004). Pollack, a civil-military writer, held that the political hierarchy’s views of the situation in Iraq prevented them from believing intelligence.

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Administration officials reacted strongly, negatively, and aggressively when presented with information or analysis that contradicted what they already believed about Iraq. . . . Many also believed that CIA analysts tended to be left- leaning cultural relativists who consistently downplayed threats to the United States. Intelligence officers who presented analyses that were at odds with the pre-existing views of senior Administration officials were subjected to barrages of questions and requests for additional information. . . . In many cases intelligence analysts were distrustful of those sources, or knew unequivocally that they were wrong. But when they said so, they were not heeded; instead they were beset with further questions about their own sources. (Pollack, 2004, p. 90)

To Pollack (2004), the war was not a mistake, but the weapons of mass destruction issue was poorly handled by the administration as a result of the hierarchy’s position that its view of the situation was complete and universal. Although he did not specifically say so, Pollack (2004) would probably support Berg’s (2011) definition of dissent: when a higher-power group has come to believe that its partial, bounded views of the world are complete and universal.

These negative examples provide a counter-balance for the research in positive historical examples, especially during the dissent in the desegregation events of the

Truman period, 1945 to 1950.

Power in Civil-Military Relations

Coercive power figures prominently in civil-military literature, as many researchers have viewed power as something negative or something used to suppress dissent (Saas & Hall, 2016). Legitimate power is a dated view of modern civil-military relations because modern civil-military theory has advanced beyond the senior civilian as the sole, legitimate source of power (Bland, 1999; Saas & Hall, 2016; Schiff, 1995).23

23 Also, D. Schwandt, personal correspondence, February 2016. 77

Saas and Hall (2016) advanced the discussion within the civil-military relations context, arguing that those at the top of the hierarchy use their power against the societal group’s perceptions of the military. Such use of power stifles dissent against the group at the top of the hierarchy. For example, the government’s ban of the press taking photos of flag-draped caskets returning from war in the Middle East filtered potential dissenting voices from the societal group “to suppress public expressions of dissent” against the war in Afghanistan (Saas & Hall, 2016, p. 180).

Mayer (1999) also addressed the top of the civil-military hierarchy. Exploring how presidents use executive power in the form of unilateral executive orders (EOs),

Mayer discovered relationships between EO usage and the president’s hold on power.

“Executive Orders thus provide an important window into presidential power: they are a unique hybrid” constituting a reservoir of independent authority (Mayer, 1999, p. 448), used to compensate for congressional opposition. This is a good point from which to start examination of Truman’s use of an EO to stifle dissent regarding desegregation of the military.24 Mayer also pointed to the dichotomy between legal scholarship and political science literature in drawing a relationship between power and EOs: legal scholarship recognizes EOs as a crucial instrument of presidential power. EOs

implement many of their most important policy initiatives, basing them on any combination of constitutional and statutory power that is thought to be available. In contrast, political science literature portrays executive orders as useful only for routine and minor administrative tasks. (Mayer, 1999, p. 447)

Hierarchies and power disenfranchise dissenters (Coser, 1957). Those at the top of the hierarchy moderate or suppress dissent. The lines between hierarchy and power are

24 C. McGrath, personal correspondence, January 2016. 78

often blurred and are not as clearly delineated as in theoretical research in dissent.

Millman (2005) provided an example of hierarchy and power interwoven to influence dissent. Millman’s (2005) historical analysis asked how the British government suppressed dissent during World War I. According to Millman, Great Britain won the war because the British government defeated domestic dissent. On the other hand, dissent in Germany festered, eroding the power of the German government to mobilize forces to win. For example, the British government relied on censorship to restrict dissent, leading the British Army and police to equate dissent with sedition. When those at the top of the hierarchy denied dissenters access to resources, such as populous port cities (restricted areas) and newsprint (rationed as critical to the war effort), they effectively eliminated dissent regarding military campaigns (Millman, 2005).

Competition for power, especially over resources, has led to the dark forces in conflict theory, such as secrecy, disenfranchisement, abuse of power, and revenge (Coser,

1967). While Millman (2005) addressed these dark forces, his reach was limited. Only a

British audience could understand the title “HMG and the War against Dissent” as meaning “His Majesty’s Government.” Likewise, Millman (2005) assumed readers were familiar with the Defense of the Realm Act and other HMG regulations, limiting the potential international scope of this article. Finally, Millman disregarded the role of other

Allied powers (such as the United States) in defeating Germany. Regardless, the hierarchy of higher levels of government highlights power as a force to stifle dissent.

Moore (2000) also examined how states repress dissent. At first glance, this work about Peruvian and Sri Lankan repression of dissidents from 1955 to 1991 had little to add from a power approach to research. Deeper analysis revealed that Moore treated

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dissent as something put down by those with more power. Whereas previous authors pointed to the organizational benefits, Moore (2000) pointed to sequential interaction on the part of the dissenter. Dissent does not just happen, according to Moore (2000); there are factors that lead up to the dissent, which is something that other authors overlook.

Such factors include dissident behaviors to which the state feels it must respond.

Dissidents then respond to the state in a sequential cycle based on state repression or state accommodation.

On the other end of the spectrum, Harp et al. (2010) discussed the legitimate role dissent plays in a more recent war, depicting how most dissent originates from official sources, pointing to government tolerance and ultimate encouragement of dissent during the Iraq War. There is power in the hierarchy. Through an indexing lens involving representation of dissent from a variety of social perspectives, the researchers proposed a theory that layers of dissent are managed by the hierarchy, similar to Berg’s (2011) hierarchy principle. Extreme dissenters are portrayed by official (and more powerful) sources as radical (Harp et al., 2010, p. 469). In another departure from Millman (2005), these authors used a quantitative research setting. Harp et al. (2010) contributed to the research question for this study by comparing subjects and objects of criticism during war, dissent from military and official sources against those in power. Measurements of power’s impact in shaping public opinion also contributed to the research (for example, government officials controlled press access in “pools” or “embedding”). However, the quantitative analysis focused only on dissenting opinions occurring in one source (Time magazine), which limited the data set. Harp et al. (2010) supported the view of Lammers

(1969) that power is one reason dissent occurs.

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Bland (1999) discussed negative power within civil-military contexts with a focus on the British experience: the prime minister is a powerful individual, but the leaders of the armed forces have great negative power to delay or prevent policies. The negative power ultimately acts in a positive manner, however. The senior civilian group must consult the military intelligentsia lest the latter employ negative power to stifle the higher group (Bland, 1999). Although Bland is strictly a civil-military researcher and had no organizational theory references in his 1999 article, “A Unified Theory of Civil-Military

Relations,” his study closely resembles more recent organizational research on shirking, a form of dissensus employing a defy strategy. Such a strategy can often lead to escalation of conflict (Whelan, 2013). Bessner and Lorber (2012), civil-military researchers, characterized shirking as a dissent tactic at higher levels. Shirking often goes unpunished in civil-military contexts unless the civilian has the full support of the military.

Lammers (1969) examined strikes and mutinies in protest movement/dissent terms. His characterization of dissent as a quest for power from those low in the hierarchy has already been discussed, but it is often cited in civil-military literature. Conflict occurs as an overt manifestation of dissent when opposition by the “ruled is met by a countermovement of the rulers” (Lammers, 1969, p. 559). The participants are members of formal organizations, usually low hierarchy groups, in conflict with high hierarchical groups who have the power (Lammers, 1969). Lammers hypothesized that the conditions leading to dissent, resistance, mutinies, and strikes in coal mining are the same for any organization. He also noted his theoretical discussion was “limited to conflicts in industrial and military organizations in which participants at the lowest hierarchical levels” oppose those who hold power (Lammers, 1969, p. 558).

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Slater (2009) also illustrated the role low-level dissenters play in conflict, noting that “the political positioning of communal elites is the key” to the balance of power within the hierarchy (p. 224). Slater’s lens was the struggle for democracy by groups low in the hierarchy. Slater is not a civil-military researcher, but a sociologist. His 2009 research discussed revolution and elites in Southeast Asia, touching on civil-military relations, so his work is included here. Similar to Lammers’ (1969) view, Slater (2009) believed that dissent occurs because of disenfranchisement. Low hierarchical groups have no power, and they dissent because they seek power. Slater (2009) found that uprisings are more likely to succeed when “communal elites assume an oppositional posture” (p.

203). Slater believed this his lens of the struggle for democracy and his findings could be applied to a deeper ethnography of how communal elites mobilize support for and gain power laterally or vertically in protest.

Hierarchy in Civil-Military Relations

The civil-military relations literature has focused on the hierarchical aspects of a subservient military serving in a democracy (Avant, 1996; Burk, 2002; Coletta & Feaver,

2003; Huntington, 1957; Kohn, 2008; Snider, 2017), perhaps more so than the power aspects. Civil-military literature regarding the military as agent and the political class as principal is broad. This section provides background regarding the hierarchical aspects of civil-military relations potentially germane to a study of dissent.

Much research does not fall neatly into a hierarchy or power basket. Civil-military theorists have discussed the relationships between hierarchy and power, but generally fall into the hierarchy classification. Hierarchical components of conflict theory suggest reexamining modern ways of waging war, specifically drone warfare, as Congleton

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(2002) suggested. Conflict ensues over who controls the resources or the information

(intelligence). Resources are essentially power, but the hierarchy controls the resources

(Congleton, 2002). Hwang (2012) argued persuasively for analyzing civil-military conflict as dependent on the availability of the power to control technological resources.

She balanced her salient points in the economic trade-off between guns and butter. These two authors suggest conflict occurs between those who have power and those who don’t, but those at the top of the hierarchy ultimately decide who gets what and therefore have the real power. Dissent occurs within the friction. Lahira-Dutt (2006) never defined dissent or conflict in her study, but took a literal meaning to resource competition, depicting war as the ultimate conflict over resources, as in natural resources.

To Schlee (2004), the competition for power within civil-military contexts explains why conflicts occur. Groups distinguish between friend and foe in the fight over resources. Conflicts are explained in terms of the power interests of the groups involved, especially their competition for power gains in the form of resource control (Schlee,

2004). Hierarchies form, and people identify with one of two sides in conflict. While the struggle is over power, alliances form, and not always with the most powerful group or the most hierarchically placed. Schlee’s (2004) data set related to tribes in conflict in

Africa, whose members identified with the hierarchical group within the tribe (or in some cases, competing tribes) projecting power, or the illusion of it, and she used action theory and coalition building as her research lenses. Schlee’s (2004) anthropological study contributes to the research question in its effective examination of hierarchies.

The work of Hasian (2007) also focused more on hierarchy than power. He also used a recent war to examine hierarchical forces, but departed from previous researchers

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in that his goal was to determine solutions, not causes. Hasian conducted a historical analysis based on case study and interviews during the early years of the George W. Bush administration (2007), an example relevant for research of the Truman period. Unitary executive power forced the military to dissent in unconventional, novel ways. The military was on the bottom of the hierarchy in the relationship. New means of dissent point to new solutions on how military dissenters can constructively alter the course of wars, turning to the judicial and legislative branches of government instead of the press

(Hasian, 2007). What this argument lacked, however, was discussion of a mandate for military dissenters to approach Congress or the courts to challenge presidential power.

The Constitution ultimately promulgates the hierarchy, determining how civil-military relations are managed. Civil-military theorists like Cimbala (1996) expanded on the literature and the law, basing a civil-military model on Huntington’s (1957) definition of civil-military relations in the United States as a constitutional system that draws military leaders into political processes (Cimbala, 1996; Cimbala & Waldman, 1992). Hasian’s

(2007) argument called for military leaders to ignore constitutional law establishing the president as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. This goes against the grain of leading civil-military theorists, who have noted there may be legal precedent to enter into a political process.

Military leaders gain experience as they move through the ranks of a very hierarchical organization. The military’s value is the expertise it has in its profession

(Huntington, 1957), giving the military “expert knowledge not available anywhere else” when applied to civil-military relations (Hooker & Collins, 2015, p. 405). Success in civil-military contexts depends on experience in the hierarchy. Danger lurks when advice

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is not heeded by those at the top of the hierarchy. For example, in Iraq, “senior military leaders also have a voice and real influence as expert practitioners in their fields. In the case of the decision to invade Iraq, this influence was not used in full” (Hooker &

Collins, 2015, p. 407).

Rotmann, Tohn, and Wharton (2009) contributed a great deal to the research in an examination of dissent during the era of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, characterizing dissent as emanating from bottom-up, i.e., from junior officers. This was a new approach.

The authors also contributed to the research in arguing for acceptance of dissenters within the hierarchy. The hierarchical military organization and civilians in power often view dissent as sedition (Cimbala, 1996; Millman, 2005). Rotmann et al. (2009) called for the military culture to find a place for dissent, suggesting, like Coser (1957), that dissent in conflict strengthens groups.

Murphy’s (2012) work, one of two studies reviewed from the U.S. Army War

College, echoed Rotmann et al.’s (2009) call that the civil-military cooperative must find a place for dissent. The leader at the top of the hierarchy should encourage dissent, finding a place for it in teams, in order to alleviate “groupthink.” Murphy (2012) examined how the military should foster a culture based on building consensus in open forums (p. 1). Gibson (2012), the second civil-military dissent study out of the War

College, called for “private and respectful” dissent within civil-military contexts. Both of these studies have value for a military audience starved for dissent literature, but lack any practical application of conflict or dissent theory, in line with the gap previously identified and the purpose of this study. Bessner and Lorber (2012) returned to the topic of shirking, but as a dissent form within hierarchies, by examining the Truman/

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MacArthur case. Drawing on a working definition of shirking as a dissent form, the authors proposed a theory that a hierarchical relationship exists between punishment of the shirker and the vested, power-based interests of the person at the receiving end of the shirk.

Historiography Approach to Research

Four articles provided background and justification for a historiographical approach to research. There is broad agreement that more integration of history is needed in organizational studies (Wadhwani & Bucheli, 2014), although the relationship between history and organizational studies theorists is “stilted and uneasy” (Greenwood &

Bernardi, 2014, p. 909). Historical reasoning emphasizes the temporally contextualized explanations of organizations and the methodological challenges of attaching meaning and significance to incomplete evidence from the past (Wadhwani & Bucheli, 2014). This study utilized a qualitative, historiographical approach using a framework proposed in

Rowlinson et al. (2014). An analytically structured historical approach retains narrative as the main focus of explanation.

Many theorists have noted that historical conceptualization offers insights not achieved through other approaches (Greenwood & Bernardi, 2014; Humphreys et al.,

2013). Historical approaches are beneficial for the extension of theory (Greenwood &

Bernardi, 2014; Humphreys et al., 2013; Rowlinson et al., 2014; Shamir, 2011). These researchers have provided guidance for any researcher undertaking a historiographical approach.

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Inferences for the Current Study

Dissent is needed in the civil-military context because it is an “important monitoring force within organizations,” signaling “organizational problems such as employee dissatisfaction or organizational decline” (Kassing, 2002, p. 188), as supported by statements from a former secretary of defense (Berg, 2011). A key inference about the problem of dissent, which often ends in tragic consequences for our ablest military leaders, is that the line between the military’s obedience to the civilian superior is changing or may need to be changed. Application of conflict theory as a lens points to a reconsideration of how this line should be drawn when considered alongside the current operational environment and technological innovation of the U.S. Army (Hollister, 2011).

To date, there has been no application of dissent theory to civil-military contexts.

While there are a few “military scholars” exploring organizational theories as applied to civil-military relations (Feaver, 2007, 2011; Milburn, 2010; Snider, 2008, 2017), enough dissent literature exists to extrapolate it to civil-military contexts. Based on my experience with 27 years of service in the U.S. Army (most recently as an adjunct professor at the U.S. Army Reserve’s Command and General Staff Officers’ College), most military research studies strategic thinking, warfighting, and purely military topics.

Military schools teach military topics. There is very little research grounded in purely academic, theoretical, empirical concepts subsequently applied to a military model such as dissent within civil-military contexts.

There is also an assumption that conflict begets dissent in conflict theory. While all theorists concur that conflict and dissent share a relationship, researchers lack consensus on the cause and effect of the relationship. Dissent is an output of conflict in

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power and hierarchy (Buckner et al., 2013; Coser, 1956, 1957, 1967; Falk, 2011; Levy,

2014; Lipsky & Avgar, 2008; Oberschall, 1978; Wagner-Pacifici & Hall, 2012; Whelan,

2013). Conflict is also an output over dissent in power and hierarchy (Gorden & Infante,

1980; Harp et al., 2010; Hollister, 2011; Kassing, 1997, 1998, 2011; Kassing & Kava,

2013; Land, 2007; Milliken et al., 2003; Millman, 2005; Moore, 2000; Morrison &

Milliken, 2000; Young, 2015). Recognizing the lack of consensus regarding social conflict in dissent typologies, more critical analysis and new approaches to research may generate new insights into conflict’s role in the dissent phenomenon.

Moore (2000) assumed that there is “no such thing as a single actor” in dissent

(p. 110), thereby discounting the “lone dissenter” theory. This makes sense, as dissent is ultimately a social act manifested individually (Coser, 1957; Kassing, 2011), refuting or adding clarity to Otken and Cenkci’s (2015) contention that dissent is a personal act. This mirrors dissent research that in its early stages lacked focus in the social aspects of dissent. Only recently did civil-military researchers embrace the tripartite idea that civil- military relations consists of not two but three groups: the military class, the civilian class from society, and the political class (Saas & Hall, 2016). My research examined dissent in civil-military relations using the three groups, exploring the contexts of dissent within and among these groups.

Some of the literature reviewed above used historiography or historical methods

(Falk, 2011; Lammers, 1969; Millman, 2005; Moore, 2000; Wagner-Pacifici & Hall,

2012), pointing to history’s rightful place in organizational studies. Historical reasoning emphasizes the temporally contextualized explanations of organizations and the methodological challenges of attaching meaning and significance to incomplete evidence

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from the past (Wadhwani & Bucheli, 2014). This study utilized a qualitative, historiographical approach using a framework proposed by Rowlinson et al. (2014).

The military, political, and civilian groups enter into a social contract with the understanding that the military is subservient (Feaver, 2007). The groups understand the importance of the chain of command and the hierarchies involved. Like a coach-athlete relationship, common elements in this environment are hierarchy and power (Kassing &

Anderson, 2014). Kassing called for more studies on power and hierarchy (Kassing,

2009b; Kassing & Anderson, 2014). Other researchers have called for more studies measuring the degree to which employees dissent upward (Kassing & Kava, 2013).

Researchers have called for more studies examining the interaction of groups among the three dissent typologies: upward, lateral, and displaced (Goldman & Myers, 2015;

Kassing, 1998, 2009b). Civil-military literature has suggested examining dissent typologies within the civil-military contexts (Snider, 2008, 2017).

Theoretical Framework for the Current Study

Dissent articles and theory, in particular upward dissent, have provided the theoretical framework, the outputs of which are hierarchy and power. The conceptual framework for this study was grounded on dissent in superior-subordinate relationships.

Dissent theory rejects the idea that dissent happens quickly. Rather, dissent is expressed in response to multiple issues within organizational climate constraints (Kassing, 2009a,

2009b). Constraints include power and hierarchy. The military and political groups enter into a social contract with the understanding that the military is subservient. Both understand the importance of the chain of command and the hierarchies involved.

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Reciprocal relationships exist between hierarchy and power. Groups dominant in the hierarchy control access to social resources that all subgroups value. Within the conceptual frame, I incorporated the power/hierarchy relationship proposed by Van Dijk

(1993), with power occurring within hierarchical characteristics of status and privilege.

Control over the resource of discourse and preferential access are at the “heart of all forms of social inequality” and ultimately how the group determines who is at the top of the social hierarchy (Van Dijk, 1993, p. 21). The dynamics of this power-hierarchy relationship are revealed in discourse. According to Van Dijk (1993, 2008), this dynamic in power-hierarchy is particularly acute in issues of white group dominance over minorities, supporting the selection of the topic of desegregation of the U.S. Army during the Truman years, 1945 to 1950.

To determine how dissent occurs within the civil-military relationship in positive, historical dissent events, the concept frame indicated analysis in

discursive themes that create patterns in the discourse, patterns that are shaped and reshaped in the social and political atmosphere of the past and the present. These patterns are historical and political legitimating principles that constitute the available means for the participants for what is appropriate or safe to say at certain moments or in certain places. (Jóhannesson, 2010, p. 252)

Micro-level fields of action occur among private individuals within civil society.

Macro-level fields of action occur at the state level (Lamb, 2013, p. 338). Similarly, micro and macro levels exist when examining pure historical discourses, particularly when a power relation is present (Taylor, 2013; Wodak, 1997). Hierarchy and power contribute to an articulation of dissent with the intention of promoting change (Goldman

& Myers, 2015; Kassing, 2009a).

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This study explored the history of dissent in the civil-military relationship, examining the hierarchical and power components of dissent, to understand how dissent occurred within a historical context: the Truman administration, 1945 to 1950. Civil- military tensions and dissent over desegregation of the military during the Truman years provided the periodicity required in a historiographical research study. The study did not intend to solve the dissent problem; rather, in promoting understanding between civil and military groups in conflict, the goal was to make the chasm between the two groups not so insurmountable.

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CHAPTER 3:

METHODS

The study is grounded in modern dissent literature, primarily anchored in Kassing

(1998, 2009a, 2009b, 2012, 2014), with hierarchies and power playing prominent roles within upward dissent models when relationships are in conflict. Dissent theory rejects the idea that dissent happens quickly. Rather, dissent is expressed in response to multiple issues within organizational climate constraints (Kassing, 2009b) and is a process of interactions over time.

The fundamental problem in modern civil-military relations is that the military does not know how to dissent. Dissent is often considered to border on mutiny (Owens,

2012), something to be suppressed (Saas & Hall, 2016), and is seemingly misunderstood in the military research community, suggesting incongruence with dissent theory.

Chapter 1 provided a brief history of dissent within civil-military contexts in the

United States, noting that dissent has existed since the birth of the U.S. Army in 1775.

These historical examples fit the theoretical definition of dissent, the expression of contradictory opinion about workplace policies and practices (Kassing, 1997), protest against the higher-power group’s isolation from the experience of the lower groups in its organizational environment, groups on which it depends and who in turn depend upon it

(Berg, 2011). General Washington continuously reminded his officers and Congress that the Army was subservient in the hierarchy, while simultaneously voicing dissent to

Congress at the “retrograde motion of things” regarding Congress’s funding for the

Army, insulation from operational hardships, and decision-making (Chase, 1997, p.

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558).25 Dissent theory provides a means to understand the history of how dissent happens within civil-military contexts, answering the call of senior practitioners, including former

Secretary of Defense Gates, for more dissent within civil-military relations.

To better understand the phenomenon of dissent within the U.S. civil-military relationship, I studied how dissent occurs within a select historical context, namely desegregation of the U.S. Army during the Truman period, 1945 to 1950. The purpose of this study was to explore the process of dissent in this civil-military relationship, specifically examining the hierarchical and power components of dissent in historical events where the dissent process resulted in positive outcomes. The Truman presidency was a period rich in dissent, especially over desegregation of the U.S. Army between two wars. Dissent occurred within civil-military relationships at all levels in many manifestations and led to a positive historical event, desegregation of the U.S. Army.

Civil-military tensions and dissent over desegregation of the military during the Truman years provide the periodicity required in a historiographical research, with ample primary documentary and narrative dissent source material (Rowlinson et al., 2014). History is useful to organizational studies in terms of enriching and deepening theoretical insights and interpretation of data, and recent works have emphasized the need for historical reinterpretations (Greenwood & Bernardi, 2014).

The outcome of the methodological process is an analytic approach based in historical discourse approaches examining “multiple societal levels” (Lamb, 2013, p. 334), but this chapter is about research design, the process of arriving at the outcome.

Methods included epistemology, prioritization, periodicity, grouping, and ensuring that

25 See Washington et al. (1983). 93

evidence passed litmus tests of institutional perspectives enabling historical discourse analysis.

This chapter begins by discussing the study’s research question and describing the research design, including the epistemology and the methodological approach. The chapter then provides details on the selection of the period of study and procedures for data collection and data analysis. The final sections discuss limitations and ethics.

Research Question

The study addressed a single research question:

• How does dissent occur within civil-military relations in positive historical

dissent events?

Answering the research question posed other questions: What can we understand about the application of dissent theory as either a cause of conflict or a result of it? What are the relationships between hierarchy and power? How is dissent used within civil-military contexts? What groups comprise the civil-military relationship? What period of time in our nation’s history did dissent between the groups comprising civil-military relations play such a vital role, resulting in a positive outcome? How have historians’ discussions about civil-military dissent changed over time? This study answered many of those questions.

Research Design

Epistemology and changing theoretical perspectives in dissent and civil-military relations influenced procedures for evidence collection, selection of a time period/periodicity, and analysis. Epistemological influences shaped the research

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methodology, which employed a phased approach for evidence collection and final analysis: (i) examination of the epistemology of conflict, dissent, civil-military relations, and historiography to shape the approach to evidence collection; (ii) determination of research priorities among the three groups of civil-military relations (political, military, and society), enabling a matrix to prioritize dissent within political-military groups as the primary effort and social-political/social-military dissent as the supporting research effort; (iii) application of periodicity26 to determine how dissent occurred in a specific historical context; and (iv) employment of institutional perspectives from Scott and Davis

(2007) to locate dissent examples in power and hierarchical aspects reflecting legitimacy, action, and meaning. This process enabled (v) construction of an analytical, chronological narrative (chapter 4), setting the stage for historical analysis of a dissent-desegregation timeline and evidence in (vi) a final analysis of contextual themes in accordance with

Lamb’s (2013) historical discourse analytical method, which included state, public, and private levels of dissent manifestation in contextual fields of action (chapter 5).

Theoretical Perspective and Epistemology

As noted in chapter 2, there are two schools of thought regarding the role that power, hierarchy, and conflict play in dissent. Dissent is either an output of conflict in hierarchy and power, or conflict is an output over dissent in hierarchy and power. Civil- military theorists are likewise divided (Levy, 2014; Wagner-Pacifici & Hall, 2012 versus

Harp et al., 2010; Hollister, 2011). The dichotomy of thought—how previous researchers viewed the role of dissent—guided the methodology. The initial stages of research

26 Periodicity involves identification of a discrete segment of history as historiographically significant beyond the perceptions of the actors at the time; defining the object of study in a specific historical context defined by the period (Rowlinson et al., 2014). 95

approached the role of conflict with an open mind and explored it regardless of whether conflict was an output or input of dissent.

Dissent epistemology focuses on the ways in which employees communicate dissatisfaction in the workplace. Kassing (1997, 1998) suggesting reconceptualizing organizational dissent as the expression of disagreements and contradictory opinions occurring from feeling apart from one’s organization. Quantitative approaches dominate dissent research in terms of data collection and sample selection (Kassing & Anderson,

2014; Kassing & Kava, 2013), whether using a survey (Goldman & Myers, 2015;

Kassing, 1998, 2009b; Otken & Cenkci, 2015), game theory (Landier et al., 2009), or questionnaire (Kassing, 2008, 2012; Kassing & Armstrong, 2002). However, qualitative methods have also been used, in the form of case study (Berg, 2011), employee narrative

(Jetten & Hornsey, 2015), and narrative (Coser, 1956, 1957).

Epistemology of dissent revolves around why dissent happens. Kassing and

Anderson (2014) described dissent epistemology as a hierarchical and power relation between groups in dissent expressions. Power is embedded in organizational structures; the expression of dissent graphs similarly across contexts, relying on hierarchical arrangements as individuals of the lower group dissent in particular circumstances

(Kassing & Anderson, 2014, p. 183). What we know about dissent is thus a result of group research focused more on the motivations that make people conform rather than on the mechanics underpinning dissent (Jetten & Hornsey, 2015).

Kassing, reliant on quantitative methods, is a prolific researcher in dissent theory; this study treated Kassing as the seminal dissent researcher. However, Kassing’s

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prominence does not mandate use of his methods. This research was not concerned with why dissent happens, so perhaps there is another method.

Historical, qualitative approaches note the “epistemological problem of representing the past” and point to “epistemological dualisms derived from historical theory to explain relationships between history and organization theory” (Rowlinson et al., 2014, p. 250). Epistemological dualisms occur in the explanations, evidence, and temporality differences between organizational and historical methods. For example, historians use verifiable documentary sources but organizational theorists prefer constructed data. Historians construct their own periodization; organization theorists treat time as a constant. Rowlinson et al. (2014) argued that epistemological dualisms are enablers for organizational theorists to justify their theoretical stance in relation to a range of historical strategies, including narratives.27 This study offered a unique approach to the study of dissent—and particularly how it occurs in a specific society through communicative contexts across and within the society’s three groups resulting in a positive historical outcome.

27 See definition in chapter 1: narrative is a sequence of logically and chronologically related events organized by a coherent plot (Rowlinson et al., 2014, p. 253). Historians have defined narrative as the “untold story that exists independently and prior to being discovered and told by the historian,” but to organizational theorists, a narrative is the explanation of historical events as a stepping stone toward theoretical development (Rowlinson et al., 2014, p. 253). According to Rowlinson et al. (2014), organization theorists and historical theorists agree that the minimal definition of narrative is a sequence of logically and chronologically related events organized by a coherent plot. This does not mean that events have to be presented in chronological order, and a simple chronological sequence of events is often seen as insufficient to constitute a narrative. The story consists of all the events depicted and the plot is the chain of causation linking them (Rowlinson et al., 2014, p. 254). 97

Historiography and Methodological Approach

History matters. Rowlinson et al. (2014) suggested that from an epistemological point of view, it is best to construct an account of the past explaining the sources found so far, rather than explaining the past from the sources. My research study focused on what is unknown or overlooked in dissent theory, using a historical perspective to offer a better understanding of the organizational phenomenon of how dissent occurs by contextualizing the past and overcoming proclivities of organizational theorists to see theory as a timeless universal and overgeneralize their findings (Greenwood & Bernardi,

2014). Organizational researchers are increasingly returning to the integration of history into organization studies (Wadhwani & Bucheli, 2014), many openly calling for more historical orientation in management and organization theory to examine existing theoretical precepts within historical orientations (Booth & Rowlinson, 2006). Civil- military theorists have likewise called for more historical method to understand modern civil-military relations. History is “absent from the debate” occurring in civil-military relations; the use of history can “identify the foundations for civil-military relations”

(Bland, 1999, p. 16). My study offered a fresh perspective for organizational researchers, academicians, and those in the civil-military community to understand how dissent occurs in civil-military relationships.

Past research in civil-military relations in the post-World War II era stemmed from Huntington (1957). Huntington (1957) envisioned military participation in the political system, where soldiers are drawn from society to defend the homeland in war while developing expertise in an arena separate from the political group in peacetime.

Huntington (1957) defined power as the ability to control people’s behavior through

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formal authority or informal influence. The definition of power has evolved from power as not one entity, but in a relationship between power holder and recipient. Yukl (2013) drew on Raven and French (1958), viewing power as the capacity of one party to influence the other, the capacity to influence the behavior of “one or more target persons at a given point in time,” and indicated that there are many types of power (Yukl, 2013, p. 192).

Civil-military research has progressed from Huntington’s (1957) depiction of civil-military relations comprising two groups. Despite modern civil-military theorists holding Samuel Huntington as the dean of civil military relations (Snider, 2017), defining civil-military as two groups represents dated thinking, assuming that “two distinct bodies—the civil and the military—are necessary for conflict to arise” (Bland, 1999, p. 10). Modern theorists have advanced Huntington’s theories, suggesting there are actually three groups in the equation: the military, the political elite, and the “citizenry”

(Schiff, 1995). Recently, Saas and Hall (2016) referred to the military class, the civilian class, and the presidential administration as the three groups.28

Despite Huntington’s (1957) gravitas in the dual agency of civil-military relations, supported by Feaver (2003, 2007, 2011), I subscribe to the Schiff (1995)–Saas and Hall (2016) model of a tripartite civil-military group—and the research methodology follows the epistemological progression.29

28 D. Schwandt, personal correspondence, February 2016. I am indebted to Dr. Schwandt for this valuable point that civil-military relations actually comprise three groups. 29 As noted elsewhere, as of this writing, I am an active duty U.S. Army Officer. However, I have also served in the United States Army Reserve. Since 9/11, over 280,000 Army Reservists have served on active duty. As the active duty end strength has fallen, Reserve strength has remained constant, increasing the proportion of Reservists—members of society—being inculcated into the active Army, perhaps making the tripartite model of civil-military relations even more 99

Pure historiography is the history of historical writing, a focus on what historians have written and an examination of how and why historians have thought about the past

(Greenwood & Bernardi, 2014). A historiographical approach uses the dissection of intentions and influences in the history, the dynamics for collective and individual human behavior, the piecing together of a story with some degree of verifiable accuracy

(Greenwood & Bernardi, 2014, p. 916). This research took a historiographical approach to dissent within the civil-military relationship from 1945 to 1950, with a focus on dissent occurring over the topic of desegregation of the U.S. Army, the historical link between theory and practice.

As noted in chapter 2, I searched for material regarding dissent over desegregation of the U.S. Army in the period of 1945 to 1950. Secondary source material such as Foxholes and Color Lines (Mershon & Schlossman, 1998) and Integration of the

Armed Forces, 1945-1960 (MacGregor, 1981) were influential in shaping a chronology and pointed to the primary source evidence, namely the Desegregation of the Armed

Forces research file at the Truman Library.30 Mershon and Schlossman (1998) provided a more exhaustive accounting of the 1945 to 1950 period. The authors discussed how leaders of the three civil-military groups positively and negatively impacted the desegregation question, including a robust accounting of Negro societal influences.

Without defining civil-military relations as three groups, the authors nonetheless produced evidence from all three parties in the civil-military relationship. MacGregor’s

(1981) work, published by the Center for Military History, U.S. Army, was an excellent

appropriate as an influx of citizen-soldiers breaks down the old model of two groups in the civil- military relationship. 30 https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/desegregation/large/ 100

companion piece, worthy because it was U.S. Army-centric, whereas Mershon and

Schlossman concerned themselves with all four branches of the military. However,

MacGregor’s foreword states: “In many ways the military services were at the cutting edge in the struggle for racial equality”—a fact technically correct, but seemingly out of context for a U.S. Army–sponsored study and ultimately not supported by my research.31

I used MacGregor’s accounting of the U.S. Army as a desegregation enabler sparingly, but both works regarding desegregation were guideposts pointing to use of the archival documents as critical primary source material. I treated the archival documents as reference points, “whose meaning must be constructed through rigorous” analysis (Farge,

2013, p. 100). In addition, the chronological organization of the archival documents enabled reconstruction of a dissent-desegregation chronology (Table 4.1). Employing the temporality dualism methods as advocated by Rowlinson et al. (2014) led to processing the primary source material and constructing a table to facilitate the method (Table 4.2).

The historiographical approach and construction of dissent chronology enabled a better understanding of the organizational, theoretical dissent phenomenon through methodological contextualization. The research involved a qualitative, historiographical approach proposed by Lamb (2013) and Rowlinson et al. (2014). An analytically structured historical approach retains narrative as the main focus of explanation.

Site Selection—Periodicity (1945-1950)

Organizational researchers are increasingly returning to the integration of history into organization studies, suggesting selection of a historically relevant period. This

31 In fact, the U.S. Army in some instances was anathema to the cutting edge; chapter 4 reveals allegations of stonewalling the desegregation issue. 101

research adopted periodicity as defined by Rowlinson et al. (2014) as identification of a discrete segment of history as historiographically significant beyond the perceptions of the actors at the time, in order to define the object of study in a specific historical context.

This research studied historical incidents of dissent from primary source material of dissent between the military, society, and the political class during the period of 1945 to

1950 as a model for applying dissent theory to modern civil-military contexts.

The Truman presidency was a period rich in dissent, especially over desegregation of the U.S. Army between the wars. Dissent occurred within civil-military relationships at all levels in many manifestations, impacted the entire military, and led to a positive historical event, desegregation. Civil-military tensions and dissent over desegregation of the military during the Truman years provided the periodicity required in historiographical research, meeting many of the dissent criteria:

• The topic illustrates the practical (military) and theoretical differences in how

dissent occurs, thereby promoting understanding in how dissent occurs in civil-

military contexts.

• The topic concerns a well-documented period of American history involving

groups in dissent.

• While much has been written about desegregation of the military, dissent over

desegregation has not been studied from a theoretical aspect.

• The topic fits the definition of dissent: groups in the civil-military hierarchy

expressed contradictory opinions in protest to the higher (presidential, political)

group.

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Data Collection/Selection of Evidence

In addition to the Truman Library, other sources of evidence (in order of frequency of use) included the U.S. Army Combined Arms Research Library, based at

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The U.S. Army War College online repository, based out of

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, also provided some evidence. I used the U.S. Army repositories to corroborate and validate evidence from the Truman Library. The U.S. Army sources provided unique evidence not easily accessible elsewhere, especially to civilians. Finally,

I also found evidence through the historical repository search engine “African American

Newspapers Series 1827—1998 (Readex)” site, accessible via link from the George

Washington University library history databases webpage.

The historiography discussed earlier in the chapter set the stage for data collection from the primary source (Truman Library) with corroboration from U.S. Army sources to verify the authenticity of the evidence. However, the Truman Library has over 15 million documents. The methodological conundrum became how to collect the data.

Secondary source material from Foxholes and Color Lines (Mershon &

Schlossman, 1998) and Integration of the Armed Forces, 1945-1960 (MacGregor, 1981) was well researched with robust footnotes. Reading both sources, and examining source material with further corroboration and support by various biographies or autobiographies of the key players (see Appendix A: Key Dissent Players—Desegregation), helped to formulate a timeline of key dissent events regarding desegregation of the U.S. Army

(Table 4.1). While the Truman Library has a section on desegregation of the armed forces that is arranged chronologically, it was necessary to form a smaller timeline around key events and epochs in dissent on desegregation in order to separate examples of dissent

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from insignificant and administrative data. For example, the Truman Library’s repository includes White House visitor’s logs, phone records, schedules, meeting minutes, and other matters included in the desegregation database as historically significant, but not germane to dissent. It became necessary to prioritize selection of evidence.

As noted earlier, this research characterized civil-military relations as comprising three groups: military, political, and society (Saas & Hall, 2016). Applying the in-group and out-group perspective to the three groups in civil-military relations yielded a complicated morass of nine possible dissent dimensions (Table 3.1).

Table 3.1 Dissent Dimension Dissent dimension Military Political Society Military X Y Y Political Y X Y Society Y Y X X—in-group dissent; Y—out-group dissent.

Desegregation during the Truman period of 1945 to 1950 involved subservient military group dissent over policies enacted by the political power group, although evidence revealed that in-group dissent and societal dimensions also played a role. The goal of the research was to examine dissent within the power-hierarchy context. Applying these parameters to dissent possibilities in the above chart yielded evidence and research- space priorities identified in Table 3.2.

Table 3.2 Dissent Research Priority Dissent research priority (group) Military Political Social Military None High Medium Political High None Medium Social Medium Medium None

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As noted in Table 3.2, political-military dissent was considered the priority, with social-political and social-military dissent considered the supporting effort. Disgruntled employees, lone wolf dissenters, and extreme dissent forms such as mutiny and rebellion were outside the scope of this research.

Figure 3.1 depicts the research priority graphically amongst groups in civil- military relations. The research priority occurred in the “sweet spot” where groups interacted. The area where the three groups interacted was particularly fertile for this research.

Figure 3.1. The “sweet spot” of civil-military relations.

The dynamics of this power-hierarchy relationship within civil-military contexts from 1945 to 1950 were revealed in discourse within the historical evidence. Discourse maintains power and shapes group dominance. This dynamic in power-hierarchy is particularly acute in issues of white group dominance over minorities (Van Dijk, 2008).

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Utilizing Table 3.2, I culled archival, historically relevant military segregation- desegregation primary source material from September 1945 to the start of the Korean

War on 27 June 1950.32 I broadened the period to include the time before U.S. entry into

World War II, as secondary sources portrayed events in 1940 as critical in the desegregation question.

Drawing primarily on documents preserved in the online repository at the Truman

Library in Independence, Missouri, I reviewed official documents, letters, reports, correspondence, speeches, and testimonies from the three groups in the civil-military relationship. Within the political and military group, I examined over 240 documents located in the “Desegregation of the Armed Forces” Research File, 1940-1950, most from the period from September 1945 to June 1950. Some documents were one page in length.

Other documents, such as the Draft Gillem Board Report,33 were over 140 pages. The average evidence entry was 4 pages. President Truman’s handwritten comments, or those of senior administration officials, existed in the marginalia of several key pieces of evidence. Other documents had official government declassification markings. The U.S.

Army saw it fit to classify documents regarding Negro segregation as “Secret”34 or

“Confidential.” However, the reasons why documents were classified is outside the scope of this research unless the act of classifying the document was mentioned in or as a

32 The Korean War actually began on 25 June 1950 when North Korean forces crossed the 38th Parallel and entered South Korea. Truman ordered the U.S. military to support South Korean troops 2 days later. 33 The secretary of war established the Gillem Board late in 1945 to report on the efficient use of Army Negro personnel. The final report, issued in 1946, was over 140 pages. 34 An Army G-1 study in 1937 directed the Army to remove the Secret classification from future studies regarding Negro personnel in an effort to provide transparency. Nonetheless, the military did not make the studies publicly available until the late 1940s and early 1950s (Lee, 1966). 106

dissent event. In at least two cases, the U.S. Army classified desegregation documents to keep them out of the public domain.

From the social group, I examined hundreds of newspaper articles and personal correspondence to the political and military groups, relying primarily on the historical repository search engine “African American Newspapers Series 1827—1998 (Readex)” site, accessible via link from George Washington University library’s history databases webpage. Evidence was then placed into political, military, or social “baskets.”

Historical discourse analysis examines social structures, power relations between different groups, institutions of power (such as government and military), and the “usual hierarchy of position, rank, or status within these institutions” (Van Dijk, 2008, p. 40), suggesting an indicator of hierarchy-power factors across the narrative. Each political, military, and social basket was then examined for components of hierarchy and/or power.

Evidence selected for analysis represented examples of dissent where an individual spoke for the group.

Analysis of Evidence

Historical research uses detailed analysis of a sample of narrative texts which can then be treated as if they were constructed data (Rowlinson et al., 2014). In this study, the plan included analyzing the matrices through systematic analysis.

Theoretical instances of dissent may not have been apparent to actors at the time.

For example, in the case of analyzing a miner’s rebellion in the 1920s for instances of upward defiance in organizations, Humphreys et al. (2013) noted:

Yet management was seemingly unaware (see Coye et al., 2010), or unconcerned (see Pane Haden and Cooke, 2012) about their workers feeling disaffected and

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alienated from their organizations, as they continued to ignore their concerns (Bailey, 2001). This disregard served as an immovable barrier to voice. (p. 317)

Humphreys et al. (2013) suggested that historical evidence is important to analyze, as the actors often do not realize their actions, suggesting a deeper analysis include legitimacy, actions, and meaning indicators.

With the evidence placed into the three baskets of civil-military groups as suggested by Saas and Hall (2016), the process of analysis involved examining the evidence to determine the motivations of the actors. Scott and Davis (2007) suggested that organizations are shaped by broader social, political, and cultural processes. The political, military, and social groups must function with some sort of “orderly behavior”

(p. 258), which suggests that the arguments and assumptions made by each camp vary along with the conceptions of the institutions. Regulative, normative, and cognitive mechanisms limit acceptable practices. Examining the evidence with the Scott and Davis

(2007) lens weeded out inappropriate evidence. Broad themes determining acceptable practices included legitimacy, actions, and meaning (Lamb, 2013; Scott & Davis, 2007), as depicted in Table 3.3. Institutional perspectives have hierarchical and power indicators, facilitating the process of arranging the evidence into a workable data set ready for analysis.

Table 3.3 Institutional Perspectives Indicator Regulative Normative Cognitive Legitimacy Legal Moral Cultural Actions State power Religious Civic associations Meanings Implications, vagueness Biblical reference Semantics—claims, disclaims, blaming victim, comparison

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To examine the relationships between hierarchy and power, I employed legitimacy-action-meaning indicators from Scott and Davis (2007) and Lamb (2013).

Such a level of specificity aids in the criteria for selection and rejection of data.35 In the legitimate indicator, legitimate normative groups have laws. Legitimate cultural groups use symbols and share meanings (Scott & Davis, 2007, p. 259). Research eliminated any evidence from a dissenter not in a legitimate position (for example, disgruntled racist citizen letter to the president). In the action indicator, groups engage in actions to manage environments. Such actions are measurable power-hierarchy indicators. Evidence was selected where there was information flow and mutual reciprocations leading to outcomes.36 In the meaning indicator, different groups make meaning, revealed in discourse (Lamb, 2013). The application of periodicity shaped the research around the central period of 1945 to 1950.

Legitimacy

Institutions, groups, or organizations are regulative. Regulative institutions have written rules and unwritten codes of conduct. Legitimate regulatory systems are legally sanctioned. Normative institutions provide the moral framework for the conduct of life.

Participants collectively guide norms by commitment to common values and social obligations. Legitimate normative institutions are morally governed. Legitimate cultural cognitive organizations are comprehensible, recognizable, and culturally supportive

(Scott & Davis, 2007, p. 259).

35 D. Schwandt, personal communication, 10 September 2016. 36 D. Schwandt, personal communication, 10 September 2016. 109

Evidence had to pass this litmus test in validity and authenticity. Immoral, illegitimate data was quickly rejected in the collection phase. For example, a disgruntled soldier’s letter to the president stating that desegregation is immoral and lacks any legal basis was rejected. Evidence with some basis in legitimacy (for example, the text of

Executive Order 9981) was accepted.

Actions

Organizations engage in collective action to manage their environment (Scott &

Davis, 2007, p. 238). Collective action involves associations such as civic organizations or state power groups (such as enacting of laws). Scott and Davis (2007) envisioned a confounding relationship between organizational groups and laws: Groups are “not simply passive recipients of laws” handed down from the top of the hierarchy; they have

“resources of their own” to shape governmental policies (p. 239).

This research addressed U.S. Army dissent as a collective action. Much of the evidence in chapter 4 met this criterion, particularly with dissent from the military and social groups. Evidence that did not meet the collective action criterion was rejected (for example, speeches and letters from “fringe” groups that did not speak for the collective action of either the Negroes or the U.S. Army, urging anarchy and violence instead of orderly, civic, responsible debate). Evidence that did not speak for a group was also rejected. Evidence speaking for the collective was accepted (for example, journal articles for a military audience, letters from heads of civic groups).

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Meanings

Meanings may be inferred from texts even if not explicitly expressed (Van Dijk,

1993). Potential indicators of meaning are understatement, euphemism, vagueness, denial, and mitigation in language. Political, military, and social subgroups exist within civil-military relations, suggesting the need for further analysis utilizing Lamb’s (2013) historical discourse analytical method to depict the communicative interactions occurring between state and private subgroups of civil society, as depicted in Figure 3.2.

Civil society

State Private

Laws, Media, Letters, decisions speeches phone calls

Figure 3.2. Meaning indicator: Dissent-historical discourse analytical methods.

Lamb analyzed these levels with a focus on the immediate context of meaning within broader sociopolitical and historical strata by grouping (Lamb, 2013, p. 339;

Wodak, 2008). Subgroups and their positions on an issue—such as desegregation—were placed into baskets for further analysis over a time period. How these subgroups determined meaning over time, coupled with the language used, indicated relationships in

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dissent contexts. This method suggested that the subgroups in civil-military society would represent power and hierarchy dynamics in the final analysis.

As the process of organizing the evidence culminated, I examined Table 3.3 and

Figures 3.1 and 3.2 with a new lens. Lamb’s (2013) methodology proposes that social levels (state and public) of dissent manifestation in contextual fields of action based in narrative forms the basis for the final analysis. Given that at this stage of the process, the evidence was already in political, military, and social baskets (Table 3.2), Lamb’s contention that analytic methods based in discourse-historical approaches should examine

“multiple societal levels” (Lamb, 2013, p. 334) seemed like a perfect fit to analyze the evidence.

Limitations of the Study

Chapter 1 introduced the validity of historical approaches. Researchers studying the benefits of historiographical methods in organizational theory have noted that historical approaches are beneficial for the extension of theory (Greenwood & Bernardi,

2014; Humphreys et al., 2013; Rowlinson et al., 2014; Shamir, 2011). The limitation of this approach is generalizability. Organizational theorists have often noted that history never repeats itself, so any lessons from history are not universal (Booth & Rowlinson,

2006, p. 6). As Humphreys et al. (2013) noted, periodicity occurs in cruder times, leading to skepticism in applying lessons learned from historiographical approaches to a technologically more advanced time. However, selection of a complete historical data set can “test the generalizability of a theory. . . . Problems are problems regardless of the century in which they are encountered” (Rowlinson et al., 2014, p. 258). History can provide lessons for the 21st century.

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Ethics

Researchers have agreed that bias is prevalent, common, and threatens the credibility of organizational studies, but if properly recognized, it is beneficial to studies

(Collier & Mahoney, 1996; Roulston & Shelton, 2015; van Dijk, 2008). Historical researchers such as Wadhwani and Bucheli (2014) suggested that traditional historical researchers are biased in that they rarely explain their methods. The authors argued for accepting the criticisms from those who take umbrage at historical approaches to overcome challenges in reconstructing the perspective of the actors. Greenwood and

Bernardi (2014) postulated that historians are defensive and self-confident: the use of history is long established and historians are “simply unwilling to bend themselves to be inclusive to the preoccupations of a newer discipline [organizational studies]” (p. 925).

Likewise, Rowlinson et al. (2014) noted historians are biased in that they have no time for theory (p. 252) and suggested that historians deal with any bias by being nimbler, knowing what kinds of history reflect the theoretical stance.

Roulston and Shelton discussed bias in qualitative research in 2015, drawing on

Schwandt (1997), who held bias as an aspect of subjectivity that deserves recognition, subjectivity referring to the personal view of the individual, unwarranted or unsupported, and biased or prejudiced. I used an overt, transparent approach advocated by Roulston and Shelton (2015), wherein bias is understood, recognized, and turned into a positive in a three-step process: interrogation of the relationship between theory and method, examinations of researcher roles, and analyses of the researcher’s work.

In the first step, “questions about the role of bias can only be understood in relation to a researcher’s theoretical assumptions about knowledge production” (Roulston

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& Shelton, 2015, p. 337). This step entails learning how to apply the methodology through understanding how various concepts are debated and discussed within the community and joining that scholarly conversation. Bias in this stage is recognized through the author’s transparency regarding allegiances when in the conversation. As noted previously, I acknowledged that as a U.S. Army officer, it is hoped this study will improve and inform the practice of dissent within civil-military relations. In addition, in selecting the historical period of 1945 to 1950, I recused myself from modern political debate; military theorists still debate the merits of Iraq and Afghanistan in 2017. For example, much has been written about President Obama’s 2010 relief of General

McChrystal in part due to the latter’s article in Rolling Stone regarding Afghanistan strategy. While on the Joint Staff in 2009, I worked with General McChrystal. I understand from the scholarly discussion in the military over dissent that the 2009 incident is still contentious. I recognized bias and mitigated any detrimental effects through evidence selection of the safe space of periodicity, 1945 to 1950.

The second step required an examination of my role as a researcher at various stages of the research. In this step, I managed reactions to generation and presentation of evidence through open evidence collection from accepted sources using Table 3.1 and

Figure 3.2. Roulston and Shelton (2015) proposed overt recognition of why researchers are studying what they are studying, and what in their own biography sparked the study.

From a historical approach, Rowlinson et al. (2014) called for researchers to locate themselves in the range of epistemological and methodological assumptions identified by historical theory (p. 252). McGrath (2017) suggested, in historical terms, to recognize

“one’s bias serves to warn the reader and acknowledge limitations,” and does not mean

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that bias is overcome. Rather, a historian’s proclivities (as a civil-military historian, for example) should “disclose that mindset to the reader, not neutralize it.”37

My interest in this topic started in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Shortly thereafter, I served in the Pentagon on several U.S. government interagency panels, as well as in Plans and Policy offices for the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of

Staff. I witnessed and had to deal with military dissent first hand. Most of it was put down by the hierarchy and those in power, even if history proved the military officer as ultimately correct. My purpose in the study was to examine dissent, not civil rights or treatment of Negroes in U.S. society. I focused on dissent evidence, eliminating hateful, vengeful, racist dialogue from both sides of the dissent-desegregation issue as not germane to the study. This study was not about racial equality, although it may play a role for those interested in the struggle of African Americans for equality. Rather, this study was about dissent in civil-military relations. Evidence arguing for racial equality in society not pertaining to desegregation of the U.S. Army is plentiful. This data was eliminated as not germane to the research question.

In the final step, analysis of the researcher’s work, Roulston and Shelton (2015) proposed that researchers overtly recognize how they contribute to the evidence and manage problems in the analysis of evidence. Historiographers discuss management of bias as something generally neglected, but called for ethics to be more informed by history, especially in the analysis of evidence (Booth & Rowlinson, 2006). There is a danger in judging past actions by today’s standards, and even the term “Negro” in this research must be used with care. I mitigated bias in the analysis of evidence by putting

37 C. McGrath, personal correspondence, 14 August 2017. 115

the past in context, another reason why Lamb’s (2013) analytical methodology with its contextual, social-interaction framework was so valuable. It is important that organizations not be allowed to celebrate their past when involved in repression or

“disregard for human health and welfare” (Booth & Rowlinson, 2006, p. 16).

A subjectivity statement is located at Appendix D.

Summary

This study used the analytic approach proposed by Lamb (2013). She proposed the historical discourse analytical method as a way to analyze social actors across multiple fields of action. In this study, the approach analyzed primary source evidence of dissent occurring between state and private subgroups of the civil-military society, capturing the manifestation of power and hierarchy in all dissent typologies. In other words, the analysis relied and built upon construction of historical chronology, an approach suggested by Rowlinson et al. (2014) and Greenwood and Bernardi (2014).

That chronology of dissent is located in chapter 4 and details the evidence of dissent regarding desegregation of the U.S. Army during the Truman period, 1945 to 1950, setting up employment of Lamb’s (2013) historical discourse analysis in chapter 5.

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CHAPTER 4:

FINDINGS

Overview

This chapter presents the findings of dissent38 regarding desegregation of the U.S.

Army from the period between World War II and the Korean War, September 1945 to

June 1950. The purpose of this study was to understand how dissent occurs in high-level organizational, civil-military contexts from the period, leading to positive outcomes. I culled archival, historically relevant military desegregation primary source material from

May 1945 to the start of the Korean War on 27 June 1950.39 I broadened the primary historical period to include the period immediately before and during World War II to establish the historical context for dissent-desegregation events.

Methods discussed in chapter 3 helped me place the data into a workable data set.

To enable a final analysis of suitable evidence, I constructed two tables, Table 4.1, an abbreviated dissent-desegregation timeline, and Table 4.2, research evidence to military desegregation timeline crosswalk. Table 4.2 places the research evidence into a chronology of desegregation of the U.S. military. Superimposing Table 4.1 on Table 4.2 yielded 63 pieces of evidence, which are presented here.

38 As noted in chapter 2, dissent is the expression of contradictory opinion about workplace policies and practices (Kassing, 1997), the “assertion by a lower power group that a higher power group has come to believe that its partial, bounded views of the world are complete and universal, a protest against the higher power group’s isolation from the experience of the other groups in its organizational environment, groups on which it depends and who in turn depend upon it” (Berg, 2011, p. 53). It is “going against the grain” and voicing that disagreement (Young, 2015, p. 3). 39 The Korean War actually began on 25 June 1950 when North Korean forces crossed the 38th Parallel and entered South Korea. Truman ordered the U.S. military to support South Korean troops 2 days later. 117

Desegregation Historical Contexts

To position theoretical findings, historical data are best presented through the key investigation of primary, archival sources coupled with “thick contextualization”

(Greenwood & Bernardi, 2014, p. 917). The purpose of this brief section is to provide an understanding of what was happening during the period of 1945 to 1950 regarding desegregation.

Segregation in the military during World War II solidified Negroes’ unequal status, but the history of desegregation in the military is uneven, falling along service lines. Units in the U.S. Army were generally segregated. In the Navy, however, Negros served in integrated40 units. Regardless of branch of service or unit type, Negro war contributions cannot be discounted. Over 5,000 Negroes served in the American

Revolution in mostly integrated, desegregated, units. While 186,000 Negroes served in the Union Army in 149 segregated units, many served in integrated units. Negros made up 27% of the Navy during the Civil War, mainly serving on desegregated ships

(MacGregor, 1981).

Since the Civil War, the U.S. Army maintained four Regular Army Negro regiments, the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th Infantry. According to the U.S.

Army’s own official historian, Ulysses Lee (Office of the Chief of Military History,

1946-1952):

In World War I the bulk of the 404,348 Negro troops (including 1,353 commissioned officers, 9 field clerks, and 15 Army nurses) were in the Services

40 Data from the period use the term “integrated” denoting a military unit that was desegregated. Evidence supporting use of “desegregation” is rare for this period. To maintain consistency, as noted in Table 1.1, desegregation and integration are used interchangeably, mirroring usage of modern historians. 118

of Supply—in quartermaster, stevedore, and pioneer infantry units. Two infantry divisions, the 92d and 93d, were formed and sent to France. (Lee, 1966, p. 5)

American Negroes serving in France discovered that foreign militaries treated

Negroes differently, a contributing factor to Negro dissent regarding segregation. During

World War I (including occupation duty), the French treated the Negro soldier as an equal. “Unexposed previously to large numbers of Americans, [the French] insisted upon treating Negroes as a part of the 1918 Army of Liberation to be accepted in the same manner as any other American troops” (Lee, 1966, p. 10).41 Getting a taste of equality left

“embittered memories of World War I,” which influenced Negro response to continued

U.S. Army segregation in later years (Mershon & Schlossman, 1998).

The U.S. Army staff thought the opposite as their World War I allies regarding racially mixed units. In fact, senior officers exacerbated racial tensions through official policies. Negro soldiers remembered the 92d Division’s Bulletin 35, issued in March

1918, stating soldiers should avoid raising the color question “no matter how legally correct,” advising that success of the division depends “upon the good will of the public.

That public is nine-tenths white. White men made the Division, and they can break it just as easily if it becomes a trouble maker” (Lee, 1966, p. 10). Negro soldiers strongly dissented with the bulletin, calling for the resignation of the commander (Lee, 1966). The

Bulletin symbolized the U.S. Army’s approach to racial matters in World War I and immediately after.

41 There is a specific reason for the French attitude. France was very inclusive of French Algeria (1830-1962), leading to an ethnically and racially diverse population in France proper. Although a province, French Algeria remained French all the same (McGrath, personal correspondence, 2017). 119

Such dissent continued in the 1920s. W. E. B. DuBois characterized the postwar

U.S. Army: “The Negro haters in the Army entrenched at Washington began, therefore, a concerted campaign of slander against the Negro” (Lee, 1966, p. 15). U.S. Army policy between the wars maintained a roughly 10% Negro strength in the U.S. Army; as the U.S.

Army demobilized, it was required to maintain the Negro regiments due to legislation from the 1860s. These units became bloated as the rest of the U.S. Army demobilized so the U.S. Army often closed new enlistments for Negros.

Policy differed from practice: although a U.S. Army 1937 policy called for maintaining a 10% Negro military roughly on par with the Negro population in the

United States, the 1940 Protective Mobilization Plan painted a different picture.

According to this plan, Negros comprised 5.8% of the enlisted U.S. Army. Infantry,

Engineer, and Quartermaster branches had higher proportions than the rest of the U.S.

Army branches with little or no Negro representation, mainly due to the head of each branch dissenting with the assignment of Negro personnel to their units. Such was the state of affairs as the United States entered World War II (MacGregor, 1981; Mershon &

Schlossman, 1998).

Presentation of Evidence

The remainder of this chapter presents evidence chronologically. Historically significant evidence involving civil-military dissent over the issue of military segregation fell into five periods or parts during Truman’s presidency:

• Part 1 (3 pieces of evidence): the seeds of dissent are sewn. Segregation policy in

World War II (November 1940—September 1945).

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• Part 2 (8 pieces of evidence): the postwar period up to Truman’s decision to act.

Postwar dissent begins (October 1945—January 1948).

• Part 3 (11 pieces of evidence): Executive Order (EO) 9981: Dissent blooms

(February 1948—March 1949)—the issuance of EO 9981 and immediate

aftermath.

• Part 4 (28 pieces of evidence): assent by all but one of the services to desegregate.

An army of one: The Army as lone dissenter (April 1949—December 1949).

• Part 5 (13 pieces of evidence): Dissent ends . . . then war begins (January 1950—

June 1950).

Each part presents the evidence from primary source material within top levels of the organizational hierarchy in civil-military relations when dissent challenged desegregation. Supporting dissent material is presented from social strata, such as Negro newspapers.

Chronology is used here as a “lesson of practical utility for understanding society”

(Greenwood & Bernardi, 2014, p. 921). A chronology synchronizes dissent over time as dissent events and processes do not occur once, but in different periods, plots, and narratives (Jordheim, 2017).

Justification for a Five-Part Chronology

Historiography calls for contextualization: To understand events in context, it is necessary to examine events outside of the timeframe.

Negro status remained basically unchanged throughout World War II. Six weeks after Japan surrendered, the secretary of war (SecWar) directed the U.S. Army to formally review its Negro policy. This marked the genesis of dissent over U.S. Army

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World War II–era Negro segregation policy as status quo. As noted in Table 4.1, the Part

2 period (October 1945–January 1948) revolved around the Army report as directed by the SecWar and ended with President Truman finally breaking his silence on the issue of civil rights and desegregation of the military. Truman had heretofore remained silent on the issue (MacGregor, 1981; Mershon & Schlossman, 1998). The next 12 months (Part 3,

February 1948–March 1949) was a distinct period because the president took powerful steps to overcome U.S. Army dissent, including initiation of an EO and presidential committee. This period covers dissent regarding the president’s use of power and ends with the U.S. Army responding to presidential committee hearings in March 1949. In the wake of the hearings, battle lines were drawn. In Part 4 (April 1949–December 1949), evidence revealed that U.S. Army dissent events occurred almost weekly. This study’s analysis described how this happened. This period ends with the U.S. Army officially withdrawing any dissent over desegregation in December 1949. The final section, Part 5, covers the brief period from January 1950 to the start of the Korean War, the release of the final committee report in June 1950, and postdissent evidence.

Time is not a variable in analysis but contributes to dissent theory.42 Dissent events are uneven across the September 1945 to June 1950 period, as noted when the 63 documents meeting the historical criteria from Table 4.1 are superimposed into a timeline of military desegregation, leading to the crosswalk in Table 4.2.

42 Dissent occurs over time. In some circumstances, the greater the time of dissent expression, the less committed the employee. Dissent is a long-term strategy within a hierarchical relationship (Kassing, 2009a). 122

Table 4.1 Abbreviated Timeline for Dissent on Desegregation Date Event 25 Nov 1940 Conference on the Participation of the Negro in National Defense 7 Dec 1941 U.S. declares war/start of World War II in United States 1 Jan 1944 Digest of War Department Policy Pertaining to Negro Military Personnel published May 1945 Army directs field commanders to report on “Negro troop performance” 14 Aug 1945 Japan surrenders 27 Sep 1945 SecWar directs Army to formally review Negro policy 4 Oct 1945 First meeting of Board for Utilization of Negro Manpower (Gillem Board) 17 Nov 1945 Gillem Board report forwarded to Army chief of staff Jan 1946 SecArmy Royall begins dissent over desegregation 26 Feb 1946 Gillem Board issues supplemental report 4 Mar 1946 Gillem Board report issued to press 20 Apr 1946 Gillem Board report published 27 Apr 1946 War Department issues Circular 124 (Gillem Board Report) Spring 1946 Army suspends Negro enlistments, says too many Negros in ranks Jul 1946 Army increases AGCT score cutoff from 70 to 99 for Negroes 22 Jul 1946 Negro groups challenge constitutionality of quota system of 1 Negro to 10 whites 29 Oct 1946 Committee on Civil Rights issues report To Secure These Rights 2 Feb 1948 Truman addresses Congress on civil rights topics 27 Mar 1948 “Declaration of Negro Voters”: 20 Negro groups call to end segregation 26 Apr 1948 League for Non-Violent Civil Disobedience Against Military Segregation formed by Randolph; threatens that youth will resist draft unless segregation ends 14 Jul 1948 Democratic National Convention 26 July 1948 Truman signs EO 9981; President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services (Fahy Committee) established 27 Jul 1948 Army Chief of Staff General Bradley dissents; states desegregation will come to the Army only when it becomes a fact in the rest of American society 12 Jan 1949 Truman meets with service secretaries and Committee on Civil Rights. States “I want it done. . . . Knock somebody’s ears down.” Wants to avoid publicity and seek consensus. 13 Jan 1949 Fahy Committee holds first hearings. Army/USMC dissent. USAF and USN state they will desegregate. 28 Mar 1949 Service secretaries testify before the Fahy Committee. SecAF Symington and SecNav Sullivan oppose segregation. SecArmy Royall dissents, argues for segregation: “U.S. Army is not a social evolution instrument.” 6 Apr 1949 SecDef directive to service secretaries: DoD policy is equality of treatment and opportunity for all in the armed services. Negro personnel shall be assigned to fill any type of position . . . without regard to race. 11 May 1949 SecDef approves USAF integration plans, rejects Army and USN plans

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Date Event 24 May 1949 Fahy Committee recommends Army desegregate, abolish its 10% quota 7 Jun 1949 SecDef approves revised USN integration plan, rejects Army’s plan, advises to follow the advice of the Fahy Committee 5 Jul 1949 SecArmy Gray and Chief of Staff Bradley present revised plan, ignore the suggestions of the Fahy Committee 25 Jul 1949 Fahy advises President Truman, SecDef, and SecArmy that proposed Army integration policy should not be accepted as fulfilling the provisions of EO 9981 17 Sep 1949 Army verbally tells Fahy dissent will end but for quota, informs the Fahy Committee that it is sending its new, revised integration plan to the SecDef 27 Sep 1949 Army refuses to copy the plan to Fahy Committee 30 Sep 1949 SecDef approves Army’s integration plan, maintains segregated units and the 10% Negro enlistment quota 11 Oct 1949 Fahy writes Truman: Army integration plan maintains segregation 17 Nov 1949 New Army plan. Fahy warns Army that the Fahy Committee will not approve, threatens to go to press condemning plan 14 Jan 1950 Fahy Committee approves the Army’s plan, but 10% quota unresolved 13 Mar 1950 Army agrees to abolish 10% quota with proviso: SecArmy informs president if a disproportional number of Negros enter the Army, it can reinstate quota 22 May 1950 Fahy Committee submits final report Freedom to Serve 27 Jun 1950 Truman orders troops to Korea 18 Mar 1951 DoD announces integration of all basic training 1 Oct 1951 24th Infantry Division, the last all-Negro unit, deactivated by Congress 1 Oct 1953 Army announces that 95% of African American soldiers are serving in integrated units 27 Oct 1954 General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., is inducted as the first African American general in the USAF Note: AGCT indicates Army General Classification Test; DoD, Department of Defense; EO, Executive Order; SecAF, Secretary of the Air Force; SecArmy, Secretary of the Army; SecDef, Secretary of Defense; SecNav, Secretary of the Navy; USAF, U.S. Air Force; USMC, U.S. Marine Corps; USN, U.S. Navy.

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Table 4.2 Historical Evidence/Desegregation Timeline Crosswalk43 Date Item Significance Part 1 26 Nov “The Negroes’ Historical and Negro has always fought, needs expanded role in 40 Contemporary Role in National Army. Set stage for World War II WD Defense,” Hampton segregationist polices. Conference 8 Dec 41 General George C. Marshall Army is not a sociological laboratory for (Army chief of staff) remarks desegregation. to conference 1 Jan 44 Digest of War Department Army Negro strength proportional to population. Policy Pertaining to Negro Preserves segregation. WD policy “not to Military Personnel intermingle.” Use of “colored” discontinued. Part 2 17 Nov Gillem Board Report (draft) Ambiguous report. Eliminate, at the earliest 45 practicable moment, any special consideration based on race but retain segregation ratio. Climate of country doesn’t support desegregation. Major General Edwards: “The Army must recognize the ineptitude and limited capacity of the Negro soldier.” 22 Jul 46 Negro groups send telegram to Racial quotas are evil and counterproductive. Truman 26 Jul 46 Nash (special assistant to WD policy restricting Negro enlistments called a president) letter to Niles “clumsy move” by Truman staff. Resist Gillem. (presidential adviser) regarding “The WD, as usual, is being clumsy about the race telegram from veterans and problem.” WD policy Dec 46 “Report on the Negro Soldier,” Dissent over Negro press involvement. Called Infantry Journal, Major Negro dissent “hellfire and brimstone” and the Cocklin reason why white officers are discriminatory. 19 Feb Bailey (CT state legislator) to Revolt of the governors: CT Governor 47 Niles McConaughy commences legal action vs Army policy of segregating the 43d NG Division. 7 Mar 47 Senator McMahon (CT) to McMahon called “lathered up” by WD. SecWar and cover letter 10 Jun 47 Dr. Carr, executive secretary of Dissent with Army policy and Gillem. “The use of the President’s Committee on armies to change public attitudes is ancient and Civil Rights, to committee well-established”; calls for universal training. 13 Dec Randolph to Truman, wants Negro pressure impacts Truman. White House 47 meeting on Jim Crow in correspondence calls Randolph an “important military, but Truman says no Negro” and the people he represents “these people.” No meeting because Truman doesn’t want Negro organizations to get credit for what he is about to do (EO 9981).

43 See Appendix A: Key Players in Dissent Regarding Desegregation. 125

Date Item Significance Part 3 7 Feb 48 Royall (SecArmy) to NJ Driscoll dissents with segregation, cites NJ Governor Driscoll, regarding Constitution providing for desegregated units. segregation in NJ NG Royall cites his authority, understands NJ NG, but is responsible for national defense. Royall goes to press. Agrees to exception. 26 Apr Humphrey (mayor of Dissents over Army threat to withhold federal 48 Minneapolis) to Royall funding if MN Governor Youngdahl issues EO to desegregate MN NG. MN “stands against hypocrisy and supports human rights.” 20 May Royall to Youngdahl (MN Cites Army regulations, states NJ was an 48 governor) exception, refers matter to NG Policy Bureau. 14 Jul 48 Democratic National Truman accepts party nomination on 15 Jul, Convention, Negro press/ doesn’t mention desegregation or equal rights. The A. Phillip Randolph dissent Negro press demands “American Army not a Confederate Army.” A. Philip Randolph continues to dissent, advocating civil disobedience; tells Negroes not to register for the draft. 26 Jul 48 EO 9981 “It is the policy of the president that there will be equality of treatment and equal opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin . . . as rapidly as possible.” Creates Fahy Committee. 10 Aug C. Clifford (special counsel to No benefit to take to NG Committee as Royall 48 president) to K. Royall, proposed in MN matter. Truman supports SecArmy Youngdahl (20 May 48). 2 Sep 48 Clifford to Royall (again) Make changes to Army report “Negro in the Army”; tells Royall to reference EO 9981. 17 Sep Royall responds directly to Royall doesn’t dissent with 2 Sep 48 letter but 48 Truman dissents over composition of Presidential Committee on Equality in Armed Forces (Fahy Committee) due to public statements of some of the Negro members of the five-person committee. 2 Dec 48 Royall to new SecDef Louis Royall says this is all political, says he will Johnson desegregate an Army post if USAF and USN also do it. With quotas. Experiment for 1 year. 13 Jan 49 Fahy Committee first hearings Army, USMC dissent. USAF says it completed plans for desegregation in a 22 Jan press release. 13 Jan 49 Truman supports Fahy Power of committee: “I want this job done and I Committee want to get it done in a way so everybody will be happy to cooperate to get it done. Unless it is necessary to knock somebody’s ears down.” Part 4 28 Mar General Bradley to Fahy Cherry picks data? Reenlistments up. The majority 49 Committee “is satisfied with pay.” Any radical changes will impact ability to win battles.

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Date Item Significance 29 Mar Royall to White Royall uses sociological statements and historical 49 House/Royall’s statement to experience in dissent. Army not an instrument for Fahy on 28 Mar 49 social evolution. Army has a Negro problem because Negro less qualified. NJ NG rates decrease. “Neither race takes to idea of integration.” 28 Apr “The Negro in the Army”: Factual report states where Negro units currently 49 Army report prepared by serve in “separate units.” Royall’s office. Army closes enlistments in April 11 May Press release USAF dissent ends. “Secretary Johnson approves 49 Air Force polices for equality of treatment and opportunity.” 12 May Internal Fahy memo for Army school system—under a quota, it is still 49 committee; Fahy also prejudice. Army is “stirring in its stumps.” The recommends that Army abolish most qualified probably wouldn’t enlist because of 10% discriminatory practices. 24 May Initial Recommendations Army sets racial quotas for schools. Enlistment 49 Report of the Fahy Committee; quota taken up, better qualified Negros locked out, Gordon Gray is now acting i.e., in April quota was full. SecArmy 26 May Gray to Johnson (SecDef) + Social environment prevents Negro from 49 Fahy Committee analysis on developing leadership skills. Army justifies 10%. 30 May 30 May E. W. Kenworthy, executive Refutes the Army’s contention that it now assented 49 secretary of Fahy Committee, with and embraced EO 9981. writes committee 7 Jun 49 Press release Navy dissent ends. SecDef approves specific actions proposed by Navy to assure equality of treatment and opportunity for all Navy personnel. At the same time, Secretary Johnson asks the Department of the Army to restudy. 24 Jun 49 Chicago resident sends letter to Pro-segregation, says there will be violence if Truman and SecDef (added as desegregation happens, society will suffer, points outlier) to white revolutionary spirit in Chicago. 6 Jul 49 Fahy Interim Report blasts Army dissent = silence. Army has not fully Army responded to recommendations of the committee. Reaffirmed adherence to the quota system and the racial unit as fixed policy; it has proposed a program which in effect would harden and extend this policy. Retrogressive policy. 15 Jul 49 Arkansas State Press article Social groups’ dissent. “NAACP ‘vigorously condemned’ Army policy relieving Negro chaplains from active duty unless there is an opening in an all Negro unit.” 25 Jul/27 Fahy to SecArmy Gray/to 34-page interim report; see above entry (6 Jul). Jul 49 Truman

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Date Item Significance Aug-Sep Intercommittee correspondence Working with Army to try and abolish quota. Aug 8 Kenworthy to Fahy Can’t understand why Army dissents. 26 Sep Memo for president (three Fahy proposes four points. These four points shape 49 events) dissent for the next 9 months. 30 Sep SecDef makes announcement, Approves Army integration plan, refuses to copy 49 press release Fahy. Press release. 3 Oct 49 Negro press Apoplectic over the 30 Sep SecDef and SecArmy maneuver. The last we hear of SecDef on the issue. 6, 11 Oct Fahy to Truman Still see segregation in Army. Truman cover letter 49 correspondence (two events) in his own hand. Recommends Truman use power. But also wants to keep president out of it directly. Calls Army plan seriously impaired. 6 Oct 49 Truman press conference Issues guidance, uses power sparingly 29 Oct 49 Kenworthy memo to Dissent = obstruction. Kenworthy calls the committee situation “impossible” and writes that Army dissent involves two senior officers who are “bottlenecks.” Army is “obstructionist.” 3 Nov 49 Washington Post article Dissent = sabotage. Army order means that “broadened racial policy” is becoming “meaningless” and the new order is an attempt at “sabotage.” 17 Nov SecArmy to Fahy, Utilization Fahy warns will not approve, threatens to go to 49 of Negro Manpower in Army press. 25 Nov and new Army plan 49 3 Dec/13 NY Senator Ives writes Urges Truman to use power. Dec 49 Truman/Truman reply 16 Jan 50 Fahy to Truman Army accepts three of four recommendations in conference of 14 Jan. The Army issues Special Regulations No. 600-629-1, “Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army,” the same day as Fahy’s letter to Truman. Part 5 21 Jan 50 Press reaction Pro and con, some skeptical based on Army history. 7 Feb 50 Fahy to Truman Relations with Army are cordial, expects quota to end soon. 16 Feb Kenworthy to Fahy Committee Army and State Department continue dissent over 50 overseas desegregation. 27 Feb Eric Sevareid report Points to USAF as model, pans any dissent 50 statistics—there is no friction when Negroes and whites serve together. 27 Mar Army field order to Dissent ends officially: all enlistments in the Army 50 commanders within the overall recruiting quotas will be open to qualified applicants without regard to race or color

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Date Item Significance 22 May Fahy press release Three programs of services are designed to end 50 President press release segregation. Consensus was voluntarily achieved. Freedom to Serve report delivered to Truman Press reaction (23 May) 19 Jun 50 Russell Amendment + press Last vestiges of dissent. Senator adds rider to Draft reports Act to keep segregation. Defeated. 27 Jun 50 Korean War begins 6 Jul 50 President Truman disbands Leaves EO 9981 intact for future generations. Fahy Committee Note: CT indicates Connecticut; EO, Executive Order; MN, Minnesota; NG, National Guard; NJ, New Jersey; SecArmy, Secretary of the Army; SecDef, Secretary of Defense; USAF, U.S. Air Force; USMC, U.S. Marine Corps; USN, U.S. Navy; WD, War Department.

Findings for Part 1: Dissent in World War II Segregation Policy

(November 1940—September 1945)

Table 4.3 summarizes the evidence for Part 1.

Table 4.3 Part 1: Historical Evidence/Desegregation Timeline Date Item Significance 26 Nov “The Negroes’ Historical and Negro has always fought, needs expanded role 40 Contemporary Role in National in Army. Set stage for World War II WD Defense,” Hampton Conference segregationist polices. 8 Dec General George C. Marshall (Army Army is not a sociological laboratory for 41 chief of staff) remarks to conference desegregation.

1 Jan 44 Digest of War Department Policy Army Negro strength proportional to Pertaining to Negro Military population. Preserves segregation. WD policy Personnel “not to intermingle.” Use of “colored” discontinued. Note: WD indicates War Department.

Dissent from 1945 to 1950 traces its origins to Negro service in the U.S. Army during World War I and the postwar period. The U.S. Army studied the issue a year before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, finding that in World War I

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there were more than four hundred thousand Negroes in the Army, or about one- tenth the whole. . . . In France, Negro combat units as a whole saw limited service. Their record fill a fine page in the rolls of America’s fighting men. (“The Negroes’ Historical and Contemporary Role in National Defense,” 1940).44

After the war, U.S. Army Negro strength dwindled as the military demobilized.

The Selective Service Act of 1940 led to congressional debate over Negro discrimination in the services. Senator Hill of Alabama dissented over the Negroes’ voluntary enlistment proviso, arguing that civilians should stay out of the issue, as any change in policy is “best left to the Army” (76 Cong. Rec. 10890, 1940, as cited in

MacGregor, 1981, p. 11).

Against this backdrop, the Army presented a paper at the November 1940

Conference on the Participation of the Negro in National Defense hosted by the Hampton

Institute. When coupled with the documents and policies from 1937 and 1940, “The

Negroes’ Historical and Contemporary Role in National Defense” formed the basis for

World War II segregationist policies. The paper pointed to Negro civic responsibilities in national defense, insofar as the Army was concerned:

The American Negro, a tenth of the population, is a segment which, by and large, possesses all the attributes which should go to make up ideal citizens capable of assuming and discharging its duties whether in a state of total peace or total war. (p. 1)

44 “Negro combat unit” means Negroes serving in segregated units, led by white officers. The 1940 report probably refers to the Negro 92d and 93 Infantry Divisions which saw action on the Western Front, serving with French infantry. According to one historian, these units fought with valor in the trenches (MacGregor, 1981). However, an official U.S. Army panel wrote in 1946, “The battle record of one of these divisions was not distinguished. Only part of the other division was ever committed to battle, with indifferent results” (“Gillem Board Report,” 1946, p. 4). The official history of the 92d Division, Summary of Operations in the World War, tells a different tale. The division sustained 323 casualties (45 killed in action) during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive from 24 September to 7 October 1918. In the closing weeks of the war, the 92d sustained 960 casualties in the Marbache sector. Division strength was 24,841 soldiers (American Battle Monuments Commission, 1944). 130

Five of the eight pages of the report are a summation of the “Negro participation in

American campaigns,” noting:

Contemporary American Negro youth needs to be reminded again and again of the fine heritage passed on to them, lest they forget the fine historical background of their social group. (p. 1)

The report, noting the positive effects potential military service could provide for racial equality, cast blame on individual Negro soldiers for their less-than-equal status:

It may be pointed out that the military establishment is not alone in offering that equality of opportunity, which it would seem is the keystone of any democracy. Nor can Negroes themselves escape responsibility for this state of affairs.

. . . Indifference to one’s own citizenship status, the overemphasis on materialism, provincialism, and a general attitude of “every man for himself” are responsible for many of the failures of the Negro as a group to “cash in” on opportunities. (p. 6)

As no major studies occurred after this paper until 1944, this report would shape U.S.

Army thinking throughout World War II.

In 1941, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

(NAACP) dissented over segregation in the military and the U.S. Army. A. Philip

Randolph organized a march on Washington calling for an end to military segregation.

MacGregor called this “the beginning of a popular based campaign against segregation in the armed forces in which all the major civil rights organizations, their allies in Congress and the press, and many in the black community would dissent vehemently over the practice of segregation” (MacGregor, 1981, p. 16).

Nonetheless, World War II policy affirmed segregation, continuing on to the postwar years. An Army Board was unapologetic regarding the U.S. Army’s anti-change, pro-segregationist policy in 1946:

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The immediate demands of war induce an attitude of concentration rather than experiment and reformation in personnel policies. And insofar as social factors enter into the military equation, it is probably asking too much to expect the Army during wartime to break sharply with custom. (Gillem Board Report, 1946, p. 4)

General George C. Marshall, U.S. Army chief of staff, did not advocate that the

U.S. Army be a crucible for shaping national policies on race, echoing the statements of the U.S. Army staff on 8 December 1941:45

The Army is not a sociological laboratory; to be effective, it must be organized and trained according to the principles which will ensure success. Experiments to meet the wishes and demands of the champions of every race and creed for the solution of their problems are a danger to the efficiency, discipline, and morale and would result in ultimate defeat. (Speech before Conference of Negro Editors and Publishers, 8 December 1941, as cited in MacGregor, 1981; Gibson & Huntley, 2005)

Truman Gibson, assistant to the civilian aide of the SecWar, organized the conference. Reflecting on the conference in his 2005 autobiography, Knocking Down

Barriers: My Fight for Black America, he wrote:

It should be remembered that back then the black press was a much more potent voice of African American aspirations and a more central spokesman for black complaints than it is today.

[The speech] espoused what was throughout the war to be the army’s bottom-line position—that the military was incapable of getting out in front of civilian society in altering the accepted social norms of America. (p. 5)

Gibson expressed disappointment at U.S. Army Chief of Staff Marshall’s remarks.

“The Army is not a sociological laboratory.” That was the sorry rationale for segregation that I was to hear General George C. Marshall . . . and other commanders repeat ad nauseam. Marshall remains an honored figure . . . but I saw another side of him, one that stonewalled black aspirations for full participation in the war. . . . His often expressed view that the army actively worked against

45 Marshall felt so strongly about the issue that he urged the conference to continue despite the Japanese attack the day earlier (Dalfiume, 1968; Gibson & Huntley, 2005; MacGregor, 1981; Mershon & Schlossman, 1998). 132

discrimination—while maintaining segregation—involved mental gymnastics and abandonment of the laws of logic that I couldn’t countenance then or now. (Gibson & Huntley, 2005, p. 6)

During the war, the U.S. Army tried to justify segregation due to the exigencies of combat. The War Department and the Department of the Army concluded that “the Negro cannot master the techniques to employ modern weapons nor the techniques of leadership” (General B. Lear, personal correspondence, 13 April 1943; Gillem Board

Report, 1946).

Negro morale suffered. “The impact of racist policies and practices on young soldiers was often devastating” (Dwyer, 2006, p. 130). Negro personnel deeply resented the restrictions they experienced at the hands of their white counterparts. Such tensions often spilled over into local communities. Segregation undermined group morale

(Mershon & Schlossman, 1998, p. 81).

A War Department report dated 1 January 1944 recognized the growing Negro morale problem while codifying Negro policy. “Digest of the War Department Policy

Pertaining to Negro Personnel” was written just after race riots occurred on military installations in Mississippi, Georgia, California, Texas, and Kentucky. The 1 January

1944 policy stated:

• The strength of Negro personnel of the Army will be maintained on the general basis of proportion of the Negro population of the country. • Negro civilians are accorded equal opportunity for employment at work for which they are qualified by ability, education, and experience. • War Department policy is not to intermingle colored and white enlisted personnel in the same regimental organizations. This policy has proven satisfactory over a long period of years and to make changes would produce situations destructive to morale. • The use of the word “colored” is discontinued. • Blood will be processed separately so that those receiving transfusions may be given plasma from blood of their own race.

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• The Negro press has a duty and obligation to report the steps the Army has taken to work out with care and consideration the problems of the Negro soldier. (Colonel J. S. Leonard, Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies, 1944)

Shortly after this policy letter, U.S. Army staff committed all-Negro units to combat in Bougainville (93d Division, March 1944) and Italy (92d Division, July 1944).

Such deployments were a source of pride to the Negro community. The Arkansas State

Press prominently placed an article of the first Japanese soldier killed by a Negro soldier of the 93d: “Private James A. O’Baner . . . was the first Negro soldier of the 93d Infantry

Division to kill a Jap. . . . Private O’Baner bagged his Nip at a range of ten feet during a jungle patrol” (“Kills First Jap,” 1944). The accompanying photo showed O’Baner recounting the tale to a white officer, the paper later reporting in June that the 93d was performing well (“Negro Troops Proving Themselves in Jungle Warfare,” 1944).

The Cleveland Gazette reported on 23 December 1944 that the individual Negro soldier, or small units of Negro troops, acquitted themselves well in battle. German prisoners of war, including one officer, described a battle in which Negro troops participated (what we now call the Battle of the Bulge). The paper quoted a German prisoner saying that the Sherman tank crew46 of Negro soldiers was one that surpassed

“anything I had seen during my four years on several fronts. . . . Only once have I seen a tank crew as full of fight as that one and that was the crew of a Russian tank knocked out and in a similar situation” (“Nothing Inferior About Colored Troops Exclaim German

Prisoners of War,” 1944).

46 A German bazooka (called a panzerfaust) disabled the tank. Two crew were wounded in action. The crewmen evacuated the tank, killed the panzerfaust team with small arms fire from 70 yards away, and subsequently killed six more German soldiers. “All of the men . . . held their own, and finally approached the Germans and shot or captured the remaining enemy troops.” 134

Findings for Part 2: Postwar Dissent Begins (October 1945–February 1948)

This section provides evidence from October 1945 to February 1948. Although the war ended on 14 August, the SecWar directed the U.S. Army to formally review

Negro policy at the end of September. This shaped much of the dissent by the time

President Harry S. Truman addressed Congress regarding civil rights in February 1948.

During this period, dissent over segregation came out of the shadows to more open forms of communication.47 Some of the evidence in this period involves Negro leaders. In particular, A. Philip Randolph and others would launch sustained, repetitive dissent regarding segregation, arguing for equal treatment and opportunity in the military.

The evidence revealed that civil rights leaders used several methods outside of normal communication to dissent: legal arguments and procedures, block voting, and implicit threats of civil disobedience. Primary source material such as correspondence between

Truman’s senior staff members indicated that senior civilians could no longer discount the growing power of the Negro (D. Niles, personal communication to M. Connelly, 20

January 1948).

As previously noted, U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Marshall stated in 1941 that U.S. Army racial problems were part of the national problem, declaring, “The Army is not a sociological laboratory” (Gibson & Huntley, 2005, p. 6). These remarks continued to shape U.S. Army thinking from October 1945 to February 1948. Under this logic, the segregation/desegregation problem was not a U.S. Army problem to solve.

Social concerns did not matter to the Army staff. Against this backdrop, Assistant

47 Before dissent is voiced (Berg, 2011; Young, 2015), the dissenter self-actualizes, recognizing incongruence between the actual and desired state of affairs, leading to distance from the organization. Dissent is at first felt. When the issue exceeds the dissenters’ tolerance for risk, they speak out (Kassing, 2012). 135

SecWar McCloy called for a policy review. The U.S. Army subsequently appointed

Lieutenant General Alvin Gillem to study the Negro question and establish a postwar policy on race (Gibson & Huntley, 2005; MacGregor, 1981; Mershon & Schlossman,

1998).

Table 4.4 lists the evidence for Part 2.

Table 4.4 Part 2: Historical Evidence/Desegregation Timeline Date Item Significance 17 Nov Gillem Board Report Ambiguous report. Eliminate, at the earliest practicable 45 (draft) moment, any special consideration based on race but retain segregation ratio. Climate of country doesn’t support desegregation. Major General Edwards: “The Army must recognize the ineptitude and limited capacity of the Negro soldier.” 22 Jul Negro groups send Racial quotas are evil and counterproductive. 46 telegram to Truman 26 Jul Nash (special assistant to WD policy restricting Negro enlistments called a 46 president) letter to Niles “clumsy move” by Truman staff. Resist Gillem. “The (presidential adviser) WD, as usual, is being clumsy about the race problem.” regarding telegram from veterans and WD policy Dec 46 “Report on the Negro Dissent over Negro press involvement. Called Negro Soldier,” Infantry Journal, dissent “hellfire and brimstone” and the reason why Major Cocklin white officers are discriminatory. 19 Feb Bailey (CT state legislator) Revolt of the governors: CT Governor McConaughy 47 to Niles commences legal action vs Army policy of segregating the 43d NG Division. 7 Mar Senator McMahon (CT) to McMahon called “lathered up” by WD. 47 SecWar and cover letter 10 Jun Dr. Carr, executive Dissent with Army policy and Gillem. “The use of 47 secretary of the President’s armies to change public attitudes is ancient and well- Committee on Civil Rights, established”; calls for universal training. to committee 13 Dec Randolph to Truman, Negro pressure impacts Truman. White House 47 wants meeting on Jim correspondence calls Randolph an “important Negro” Crow in military, but and the people he represents “these people.” No meeting Truman says no because Truman doesn’t want Negro organizations to get credit for what he is about to do (EO 9981). Note: CT indicates Connecticut; EO, Executive Order; MN, Minnesota; NG, National Guard; NJ, New Jersey; SecWar, Secretary of the War; WD, War Department.

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On 17 November 1945, the Gillem Board made recommendations to improve the

U.S. Army’s employment and treatment of Negro soldiers. The mission of the Gillem

Board was to prepare a policy for the use of authorized Negro manpower potential during the postwar period (Draft of the Gillem Board Report, 1945).48 The board concluded its

140-plus-page draft and forwarded it to the Army staff with a “Secret” security classification. Security classifications during that time were unclassified, confidential, secret, and top secret. The secret designation means unauthorized disclosure of the information could cause grave damage to national security. As Figure 4.1 indicates, it wasn’t until March 1964 that the Department of Defense declassified the draft in accordance with Department of Defense Directive 5200.9 dated 27 September 1958.

Figure 4.1. Draft of the Gillem Board report showing its declassification (Truman Archives, 1945, p. 1).

48 Gillem, from Tennessee, commanded the XIII Corps in Europe. The XIII had some Negro combat units. Other general officer board members came from Virginia and Michigan, representing broad and diverse backgrounds (MacGregor, 1981; Mershon & Schlossman, 1998). 137

That Gillem saw fit to classify the report is noteworthy for two reasons. First, in

1937, the U.S. Army G-1 issued guidance that future reports regarding race and segregation should not be classified. Second, in accordance with the board’s charter, the board was “to prepare a policy for the use of authorized Negro manpower” (Draft Gillem

Board Report, 1945). In other words, the report and subsequent policy when implemented could not be secret, yet they were.

Also in November 1945, General Eisenhower replaced Marshall as U.S. Army chief of staff. Eisenhower forwarded the draft report to the SecWar for approval. The final report, subsequently approved in February 1946, said that in the future, “the Army should eliminate, at the earliest practicable moment, any special consideration based on race.” Noting the War Department had a “social rather than a military policy for the utilization of Negro troops” (a conclusion at odds with Marshall’s sociological statement), the final report did not question the continuation of segregation, but pointed to the “immediate objective of an evaluation of the Negro on the basis of individual merit and ability” (Gillem Board Report, 1946).

The final report also recommended continuation of the quota system: “The proportion of Negro to white manpower as exists in the civil population” should be the

“ratio for creating a troop basis in the postwar Army.” Negro troops would be placed with

“white units . . . the inclusion of a black service company in a white regiment” (Gillem

Board Report, 1946).

The War Department released the report to the press on 4 March 1946 (War

Department Press Release, 4 March 1946 as cited in MacGregor, 1981, p. 162). “War

Department Adopts New Policy for Negro G.I.s” was the front-page headline in the

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Kansas City Plaindealer (which called itself the “oldest Negro newspaper in the

Southwest”):

The Department released to newsmen recommendations for integrating Negro soldiers in the post-war army. . . . The newsmen of the race hailed the declaration of this new and more liberal policy as a sign of the increasing growth of the democratic ideals and methods in the war department and the nation. (“War Department Adopts New Policy for Negro G.I.s,” 8 March 1946)

The U.S. Army established the Gillem Board report as policy in Circular 124 on

27 April 1946. Nonetheless, reviews in the U.S. Army were mixed. Some senior officers dissented with the U.S. Army decision, voicing disagreement in calling the circular a

“proposed” policy or still open for discussion. Assistant Secretary of the Army

(SecArmy) Petersen said “these basic matters are no longer open for discussion” in an attempt to stifle this dissent (MacGregor, 1981, p. 175). The U.S. Army staff closed ranks around the report, with General Jacob Devers, commanding general of the Army ground forces, stating, “We are going to put colored49 battalions in white divisions. This is purely business—the social side will not be brought into it” (J. Devers, personal communication,

16 May 1946). Other U.S. Army officers protested over the higher authority’s lack of experience and isolation from the tactical issues of the day—how to win small engagements with the enemy. A Command and General Staff College report by a U.S.

Army colonel argued for complete integration at the lowest tactical levels while supporting earlier U.S. Army reports that the Negro’s performance was inferior to white troops:

The negro [sic] as a product of the environment in which he finds himself is inferior in efficiency to white troops. His use in large groups motivate against

49 A noteworthy choice of words, and in direct contravention of the 1944 policy “Digest of the War Department Policy Pertaining to Negro Personnel” prohibiting the use of “colored.” 139

training him to the highest standard, and invites trouble from outside agitation groups seeking racial equality. Public opinion still demands social segregation, but the utilization of the negro [sic] in small units or as individuals integrated into white units will more speedily develop his efficiency and at the same time increase it. All officer personnel must study the problem and strive to increase the negro [sic] efficiency as well as the white.

Action recommended:

a. That the same high standards for induction into the armed forces be maintained for both blacks and whites. b. That blacks be integrated into white units as individuals, or in as small groups as possible. (Mack, 1946, p. 5)

However, Colonel Mack also recommended maintaining some modicum of segregation:

c. That separate facilities be provided for living, for social, and for recreation. That segregation be maintained as demanded by the general concensus [sic] of public opinion. d. That negro [sic] troops not exceed in numbers the ratio as indicated by the total numbers of blacks and whites in the nation. (Mack, 1946, p. 5)

Other more powerful, higher-ranking U.S. Army officers dissented with the findings, vowing to keep segregation.

Lieutenant General J. E. Hull suggested that all Negro enlisted men be assigned to all-Negro units, and no Negro officer be given command of white troops. Air Force Maj. Gen. Idwal Edwards agreed in general with the board’s recommendations, but warned of the “ineptitude and limited capacity” of the Negro soldier. Army Maj. Gen. Daniel Noce was most critical of the non- segregation features of the board report. He wrote: “ . . . social intermingling of Negros and whites is not feasible. It is forbidden by law in some parts of the country and is not practiced by the great majority. . . . To require citizens, while in the Army, to conform . . . would be detrimental to the morale of white soldiers.” (Gropman, 1978, p. 57)

Sustaining the quota system led to problems. Field commanders opposed an influx of Negroes in their units, especially units stationed overseas. The deputy commander of the Army Air Forces dissented with the idea of placing Negro units into larger white

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organizations and instead came up with a plan to keep morale, recreation, and welfare facilities segregated (Mershon & Schlossman, 1998, p. 150). The Gillem Board recommended at racially mixed installations that policies “regarding the use of recreational facilities and officers clubs, messes, or similar social organizations be continued and made applicable to the postwar Army” (Gillem Board Report, 1946). The

State Department also objected to Negroes serving overseas, fearing violence between

Negro and white would spill over into the rubble-strewn streets of Europe.50 Rapid demobilization also led to problems with the quota in the U.S. Army as more Negroes opted to stay in the U.S. Army, whereas their white counterparts had good jobs to return to (MacGregor, 1981). To discourage Negro enlistments, the U.S. Army raised the reenlistment requirements on the Army General Classification Test (AGCT) to 70.

Entrance requirements for new Negro soldiers increased even higher, to which the Negro press responded, “Why is it that a white man with an AGCT score of 70 can make an effective soldier and a colored man cannot?” (Kansas City Plaindealer, 18 October

1946).

Negro enlistments decreased and subsequently ceased in the summer of 1946. The

United Negro and Allied Veterans dissented with the “stoppage of Negro enlistments” as noted by White House staff. Philleo Nash, special assistant to the president, called the enlistment policy a “very clumsy move, which is in part partly responsible for certain dissent” and resistance to the Gillem Board. Nash went on to write in a 26 July 1946 letter that the “War Department is, as usual, being clumsy about the race problem and it is really not necessary” (P. Nash, personal correspondence, 26 July 1946).

50 For more on State Department segregation, see Anderson (2003). 141

The genesis for the letter was social dissent from the Negro community over the quota system. In a telegram to the president, the United Negro and Allied Veterans of

America said it “unreservedly condemns any and all quota systems” as they are “without justification and democratic principle as a depravation of a Constitutional right to serve”

(United Negro and Allied Veterans of America, telegram to Harry S. Truman, 22 July

1946):

World War II proved decisively the evil of racial quotas. Continuation by the War Department of its past policy of segregating and restricting Negroes points out the tragic failure of the country’s military leadership to learn from experience. Experience shows that this policy was wasteful, undemocratic, and destructive of good morale.

The group also dissented with U.S. Army policy that terminated the assignment of

Negroes to Europe.

When the Army chose to decide what kind of Americans can serve in its ranks and where they can serve it is dangerously arrogating prerogatives that do not belong. . . . The War Department refuses to consider Negro citizens on their individual merits and qualifications. . . . It is unquestionable discrimination. (United Negro and Allied Veterans of America, telegram to Harry S. Truman, 22 July 1946)

Negro groups and the power of the press seemingly exacerbated the conflict between the pro- and anti-desegregation groups. Writing in the December 1946 issue of

Infantry Journal, U.S. Army Major Robert F. Cocklin took the Negro press to task for throwing gasoline on a fire:

The Negro press has an opportunity to be of great assistance by adopting a policy of promoting good will instead of hellfire and brimstone routine it has so often used in the past. (Cocklin, 1946, p. 8)

Cocklin, a mid-level field artillery officer who served with the 93d Infantry

Division from 1942 to 1945, stated, “A large part of the Negro press did a great

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disservice to the members of the race” by claiming that “the colored soldier was being discriminated against at every turn” (Cocklin, 1946, p. 2). However, Major Cocklin did not actually support his conclusion.

High-level civilian officials likewise used the press to dissent against U.S. Army segregation. John Bailey, chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee of

Connecticut, noted in a 19 February 1947 letter to the White House that the Hartford

Times prominently reported the legislative and executive dissent of Connecticut.

Governor McConaughy commenced legal action “against the Army’s policy of segregating Negroes in the National Guard” (J. Bailey, personal correspondence to Harry

S. Truman, 19 February 1947). The 43rd Division of the National Guard51 comprised

Connecticut, Vermont, and Rhode Island soldiers. Senator Brien McMahon of

Connecticut wrote Robert Patterson, SecWar, a day later:

Governor McConaughy has recently given out a statement to the effect that he deplores segregation of Negro troops in the National Guard in the state of Connecticut. He is quite lathered up at what he calls the policy of discrimination. Please advise me. . . . I am going to release your answer to the press. (B. McMahon, personal correspondence to Patterson, 20 February 1947)

Patterson replied on 7 March 1947, citing War Department policy, Circular 124 of

27 April 1946: “Groupings of Negro units with white units and composite organizations will be accepted policy.” Patterson also pointed to the National Guard as “armed,

51 The National Guard is a reserve military force comprising soldiers from U.S. states and territories. Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution establishes the president as commander of state militias when called into the actual service of the United States for a national emergency. In a state emergency, such as a natural disaster or weather event, state governors may activate their guard units. The National Guard is administered by the National Guard Bureau commanded by a four-star general, a joint activity of the U.S. Army and Air Force under the Department of Defense. The National Guard Bureau funds the guard units.

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uniformed, and trained by the Federal Government” (R. Patterson, personal correspondence to Governor McConaughy, 7 March 1947, p. 1). In the conclusion of his letter, the SecWar noted that Major General Kramer, commander of the 43rd Division, was not

in command of the National Guard of Connecticut. As a Division Commander General Cramer is bound by the policies of the War Department. (R. Patterson, personal correspondence to Governor McConaughy, 7 March 1947, p. 2)

This would not be the first instance of state civil-governmental dissent.

In the summer of 1947, Dr. Robert Carr, a Harvard Ph.D. and executive secretary of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, wrote the committee regarding a missive entitled “Negroes in the Armed Forces.” Carr stated:

The most important role of the Armed Forces [is as] an educator. Military service is the one place in society where the mind of the adult citizen is completely at the disposal of the government. The use of armies to change public attitudes is ancient and well-established.

Carr noted, in the wake of the Gillem Board’s shortcomings, the U.S. Army dissented with House Resolution Bill 279 prohibiting the separation of races in the armed forces. Carr’s report recommended universal military training to “handle the Negro problem” (R. Carr, personal communication to President’s Committee on Civil Rights, 10

June 1947). Dissenting with segregation by using the term “universal,” he meant elimination of the segregated and separate basic training and school systems used by the

U.S. Army.

A. Philip Randolph, as national treasurer of the Committee Against Jim Crow in

Military Service, continued to dissent over U.S. Army segregation policy, requesting a meeting with the president in the closing days of 1947. Randolph was also the leader of

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the Negro Pullman Porters Union. Randolph wrote several letters to President Truman in

December 1947 and January 1948. Truman’s staffers delayed the meeting. On 12 January

1948, Randolph compared the meeting over the “elimination of, rather than the extension of, segregation” as a matter of equal importance to the European post-war recovery program52 (A. P. Randolph, personal communication to Harry S. Truman, 12 January

1948).

The correspondence regarding the impact of social influences upon senior administration officials and the president marked the end of the postwar dissent period due to two events. First, Truman finally revealed he was thinking of addressing the dissent issue head on. Second, the U.S. Army was about to enter a new dissent approach.

Notes in Truman’s own hand in the marginalia revealed he did not want Negro organizations to get credit for what he was about to do on civil rights. David Niles,

Truman’s appointments secretary, indicated that something was afoot in Truman’s mind:

Phil Randolph . . . is an important Negro. . . . I suggested the meeting sometime in the first week of February. . . . The President’s civil-rights message will be completed and sent to the Hill. In that message there will be some mention of Jim Crow and military service, and these people will not be able to say that the message is the result of the visit. (D. Niles, personal communication to M. Connelly, 20 January 1948)

The meeting finally took place on 3 February 1948, 4 days before the SecArmy became the standard bearer for dissent over desegregation and a mere 5 months before

EO 9981.

52 An example of direct factual appeal, the most common dissent tactic, followed closely by repetition (Kassing, 2009a, 2013). 145

Findings for Part 3: Executive Order 9981,

Dissent Blooms (March 1948–January 1949)

Overview

The political-military battle lines for dissent regarding U.S. Army desegregation were drawn in this period. Table 4.5 reveals 11 historically significant evidence events.

As noted in the table, EO 9981 was the catalyst for much of the primary source material.

The timeline reveals a flurry of activity around three key components of this period: correspondence revealing dissent to/from the new SecArmy, events around the

Democratic National Convention, and dissent over the Fahy Committee hearing. Each of these components led to more dissent.

Table 4.5 Part 3 Historical Evidence/Desegregation Timeline Date Item Significance 7 Feb 48 Royall (SecArmy) to NJ Driscoll dissents with segregation, cites NJ Constitution Governor Driscoll, providing for desegregated units. Royall cites his regarding segregation in authority, understands NJ NG, but is responsible for NJ NG national defense. Royall goes to press. Agrees to exception. 26 Apr Humphrey (mayor of Dissents over Army threat to withhold federal funding 48 Minneapolis) to Royall if MN Governor Youngdahl issues EO to desegregate MN NG. MN “stands against hypocrisy and supports human rights.” 20 May Royall to Youngdahl (MN Cites Army regulations, states NJ was an exception, 48 governor) refers matter to NG Policy Bureau. 14 Jul 48 Democratic National Truman accepts party nomination on 15 Jul, doesn’t Convention, Negro press/ mention desegregation or equal rights. The Negro press A. Phillip Randolph demands “American Army not a Confederate Army.” dissent A. Philip Randolph continues to dissent, advocating civil disobedience; tells Negroes not to register for the draft. 26 Jul 48 EO 9981 “It is the policy of the president that there will be equality of treatment and equal opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin . . . as rapidly as possible.” Creates Fahy Committee.

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Date Item Significance 10 Aug C. Clifford (special No benefit to take to NG Committee as Royall 48 counsel to president) to K. proposed in MN matter. Truman supports Youngdahl Royall, SecArmy (20 May 48). 2 Sep 48 Clifford to Royall (again) Make changes to Army report “Negro in the Army”; tells Royall to reference EO 9981. 17 Sep 48 Royall responds directly to Royall doesn’t dissent with 2 Sep 48 letter but dissents Truman over composition of Presidential Committee on Equality in Armed Forces (Fahy Committee) due to public statements of some of the Negro members of the five-person committee. 2 Dec 48 Royall to new SecDef Royall says this is all political, says he will desegregate Louis Johnson an Army post if USAF and USN also do it. With quotas. Experiment for 1 year. 13 Jan 49 Fahy Committee first Army, USMC dissent. USAF says it completed plans hearings for desegregation in a 22 Jan press release. 13 Jan 49 Truman supports Fahy Power of committee: “I want this job done and I want Committee to get it done in a way so everybody will be happy to cooperate to get it done. Unless it is necessary to knock somebody’s ears down.” Note: EO indicates Executive Order; MN, Minnesota; NG, National Guard; NJ, New Jersey; SecArmy, Secretary of the Army; SecDef, Secretary of Defense; USAF, U.S. Air Force; USMC, U.S. Marine Corps; USN, U.S. Navy.

Historical Context

The National Security Act of 1947 changed the complexion of the War

Department to the modern Defense Department. Service secretaries headed military departments, with the powers of the secretary of defense (SecDef) eventually strengthened in 1949, with more power than previous SecWar positions. James Forrestal, the first SecDef, indicated his position was “evolutionary not revolutionary,” as in 1947 and 1948 he lacked power to enact significant reform. “Progress must be made administratively and should not be put into effect by fiat,” he said (MacGregor, 1981, p. 299).

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According to the Center for Military History, U.S. Army, Secretaries of the Army:

Portraits and Biographical Sketches (Bell, 1992), Kenneth Royall, a North Carolinian, served in World War I as a field artillery officer. A Harvard lawyer, he was a special assistant to SecWar Stinson in 1945. Truman appointed Royall as SecWar in 1947, but the National Security Act undermined his cabinet position and he became SecArmy.

Facing a mutiny in state National Guard units over desegregation, one of Royall’s first acts was to monitor state-level dissent over U.S. Army segregation policies. Royall’s dissent figures prominently in this section.

Truman likewise faced a conundrum, especially in the months preceding the

Democratic National Congress (the Democratic Convention), scheduled for mid-July.

Truman had never campaigned for president before. He had a fight on his hands with

Congress over the Marshall Plan (European Recovery Act) and the draft. Democratic congressional leadership urged Truman to remain silent on civil rights issues. The SecDef concurred, but for different reasons. Truman sought to keep “Southern Democrats loyal to him and the Democratic Party” (Mershon & Schlossman, 1998, p. 180). Political considerations would shape the desegregation issue during this period, especially as

Truman sought votes. Richard Dalfiume (1969) characterized the Negro vote as “crucial”

(p. 1).

Shortly after the convention, the president issued EO 9981, which declared on 26

July 1948 that “there will be equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin” (EO 9981, 1948). Perhaps more importantly, EO 9981 created the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and

Opportunity in the Armed Services. Charles Fahy from Georgia chaired what came to be

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known as the Fahy Committee. In Fahy’s mind, the mission of the committee was to persuade the armed forces to adopt nondiscriminatory policies (Dalfiume, 1968, p. 4).

The three white and two black committee members were charged with how “the oversight of Truman Administration’s decision to desegregate the armed forces was gradually translated into actual organizational policies and practices” (Mershon &

Schlossman, 1998, p. 187). The Fahy Committee correspondence in the months after EO

9981 and the convention led to vast amounts of dissent data, the most influential of which are covered in the following pages.

Presentation of Evidence

SecArmy Royall wasted no time in attempting to stifle dissent from state governors. Many northern states dissented over U.S. Army segregation policy, particularly where National Guard troops were concerned. New Jersey was one of

Royall’s first challenges. Royall wrote New Jersey Governor Driscoll on 7 February

1948:

In accordance with the report of competent and experienced officers, the War Department on 27 April 1946 issued regulations which, among other things, required (subject to certain exceptions) that when Negroes are employed in Army units below the battalion, they will be organized into separate units.

Royall noted the unique characteristics of the New Jersey Constitution:

I have noted the fact that the people of New Jersey by direct majority vote have provided in their Constitution that no person shall be . . . segregated in the militia because of race, color . . .

The SecArmy then asserted his authority:

While the authority to determine all questions relating to the Federally recognized National Guard must necessarily be exercised by the Department of the Army . . .

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Royall closed the letter with a decision:

I have determined that for the present, Army militia units of New Jersey, if otherwise qualified, will not be denied Federal recognition on the ground of non- segregation.

This would be one of the few exceptions Royall would make regarding Army segregation. In addition, the New Jersey episode would not be the last time a governor dissented with him on segregation policy. Royall issued a press release containing the above correspondence on 7 February 1948.

On 26 April 1948, Hubert Humphrey, mayor of Minneapolis, wrote to SecDef

Forrestal protesting the potential withholding of federal funds to Minnesota if the

Minnesota National Guard desegregated. This was significant because it represented the first instance of dissent from a municipal official. Humphrey expected a reply, as Royall had not responded to an early March request from Governor Youngdahl requesting

Defense Department leadership to weigh in on the issue.

It is Governor Youngdahl’s intention to issue an executive order doing away with all discrimination in the National Guard on the basis of race. . . . The Governor informed me a few days ago that he intends to issue such an executive order and the very near future whether or not he received a reply from Secretary Royall. It seems clear to me that the governor is right on this issue. I see no moral, legal, practical reason. (H. Humphrey, personal communication to Forrestal, 26 April 1948).

Humphrey viewed his dissent as taking a stand in keeping with the values of our

“Democratic administration” and “defense of human rights” (H. Humphrey, personal communication to Forrestal, 26 April 1948).

The SecArmy responded to the Minnesota governor on 20 May 1948, citing the delay due to lack of authority from his chain of command: “I am now authorized to reply to your letter of March 6, 1948” (K. Royall, personal communication to Youngdahl, 20

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May 1948). Royall invoked the same language of his New Jersey letter, citing national defense priorities.

Since I became Secretary of the Army, this matter has been carefully considered by the Military Staff of this Department. . . . It is the opinion of the Staff—with which I concur—that in the interest of National Defense the policy of April 27, 1946 should be uniformly applied throughout the Federal forces of the Army. (K. Royall, personal communication to Youngdahl, 20 May 1948)

Royall dissented against civilian, state governmental intrusion into matters he considered best handled at national levels, reminding Youngdahl three times in one sentence that this was a matter not subject to state adjudication, with the exception of New Jersey: “this

Department,” “National Defense,” “Federal forces.”

Nor did Royall’s reply end Minnesota dissent. Minnesota Congressmen Dewitt,

Hagan, and Blatnik all made subsequent inquiries to the SecDef. Royall replied to all three in separate letters on 23 July: “The matter is receiving consideration along the lines suggested in the [20 May] letter to Governor Youngdahl” (Royall, personal communications, 23 July 1948).

Meanwhile, Truman accepted his party’s nomination for president on 15 July

1948, making little reference to civil rights or to segregation. Dalfiume (1969) called this the “breakup of the Democratic coalition.” Truman urged the Democratic National

Committee to “adopt a vague statement that while supporting civil rights in general terms, would not mention the specific tenets of his own civil rights ideas” (Mershon &

Schlossman, 1998, p. 181). Southern Democrats would soon dissent against the president’s call for desegregation.

The Negro press ran stories demanding the creation of an “American Army not a Confederate Army,” and A. Philip Randolph continued to dissent, advocating

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civil disobedience while telling Negroes not to register for the draft (Mershon &

Schlossman, 1998). Southern Democrats fought to exclude any civil rights provisions in the convention. Truman appeared weak. He directed his staff to prepare an EO for 26 July release, the same day as the opening of a special session of the Republican-controlled

Congress.

It is the policy of the president that there will be equality of treatment and equal opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin . . . as rapidly as possible. (EO 9981, 26 July 1948)

Widely recognized as the watershed moment in ending segregation in the military, the EO for a period lasting several months actually had the opposite effect. Army Chief of Staff Bradley dissented with the military-first, society-second approach53 of the EO, stating that desegregation will come to the U.S. Army only when it becomes a fact in the rest of American society. As we shall see, dissent would occur more frequently as the battle lines were drawn.

The National Guard issue still unresolved, in the wake of EO 9981, it was Truman’s turn to engage. On 10 August 1948, Truman’s Special Counsel Clark Clifford wrote to Royall (C. Clifford, personal correspondence to R. Royall, 10 August 1948)

(Figure 4.2):

53 Many would make the same argument over gays in the military in the 2000s. 152

Figure 4.2. Clifford’s letter to Royall, 10 August 1948.

Governors retained some influence on the president to result in a letter to the

SecArmy urging Royall to adhere to EO 9981.

Clifford, 1 month later,54 urged Royall to change some of the language in the

Cocklin report of December 1946. On 2 September 1948, he wrote Royall:

I am attaching a suggested addition to the report entitled “The Negro in the Army.” We feel here that it is most important that reference be made to Executive Order No. 9981 and we submit the attached suggestion. (C. Clifford, personal correspondence to R. Royal, 2 September 1948)

Royall then took a new approach in his dissent in a reply directly to the president on 17 September 1948: ignoring Clifford in his reply, he didn’t refute the suggested

54 In his 10 August 1948 letter, Clifford referred to an “attached draft.” Unfortunately, that draft was lost to history. However, Clifford again suggested changes in his 2 September 1948 letter. See Appendix C. 153

language for “The Negro in the Army.” Rather, he dissented with the conduct and public statements of proposed Fahy Committee members55 (K. Royall, personal correspondence to H. S. Truman, 17 September 1948) (Figure 4.3):

Figure 4.3. Royall’s Letter to Truman, 17 September 1949.

Royall’s dissent had little impact—the White House went public, issuing a press release the next day, announcing the formation of the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. President Truman appointed Mr.

55 Circumvention, another dissent tactic, occurs when the top of the hierarchy is inactive, forcing the dissenter to shift tactics. Circumvention is one of the more oppositional dissent tactics, the other being resignation (Kassing, 2009b). 154

Lester Granger of the National Urban League executive secretary of the commission.

SecDef Forrestal had consulted with Granger frequently over Negro policy and integration in the military.

The manner of appointment and the composition of the committee established the committee’s power. Previous committees, often composed of military members, functioned as an advisory committee to the SecDef. Fahy, however, had authorities outside of military channels. “Its strength and value stemmed from the fact that it actually existed outside the military, as an independent civilian investigative board” (Mershon &

Schlossman, 1998, p. 190).

Royall then took yet another circumventive dissent tactic, postulating solutions involving U.S. Army sister services. He wrote to Forrestal on 2 December 1948 regarding a proposed experiment to establish a nonsegregated U.S. Army post if the Navy and Air

Force56 would undertake similar measures.

Of the enlisted men, roughly 10% will be Negro. . . . Of the non-commissioned officers of the cadre, approximately 5% will be Negro, this also being the average proportion in the Army at present. . . . The initial officer strength will be approximately 3% Negro.

Royall recommended the SecDef give the matter careful consideration, “preferably early next year” (Royall, personal correspondence to Forrestal, 2 December 1948).

Meanwhile, the Fahy Committee held its first meetings in January 1949. Truman established his intent and the committee’s power:

I want this job done and I want to get it done in a way so everybody will be happy to cooperate to get it done. Unless it is necessary to knock somebody’s ears down, I don’t want to have to do that, but if it becomes necessary, it can be done. But

56 As noted in chapter 2, there are three dissent hierarchy types: upward, lateral, and displaced. Involving the sister services represents lateral dissent. 155

that’s about all I have to tell you. (Minutes, Meeting of the President and the Four Service Secretaries with the President’s Committee on the Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 12 January 1949, as cited in Mershon & Schlossman, 1998, p. 190; MacGregor, 1981, p. 348; Dalfiume, 1968)

Thus, Fahy’s power derived from the president and, to a lesser extent, the SecDef, who would implement solutions. “It is my profound desire that the work of the

Committee will yield results which will not simply be a report, but a set of operable plans, a blue print, for constructive action,” the president said at the opening plenary session of the committee (Harry S. Truman, Remarks to President’s Committee on

Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 12 January 1949).

SecDef Forrestal dissented with Fahy’s authorities and conducted his own pre- emptive strike on Fahy, but the service secretaries rejected this approach as they were not consulted and thought the SecDef was overstepping his bounds. The initiative ended with

Forrestal’s term as SecDef. Forrestal resigned in March 1949 amid scandal over his purported support of Truman’s opponent in the presidential election made public in early

1949.57 The president appointed Louis Johnson as SecDef (Dalfiume, 1969; MacGregor,

1981; Mershon & Schlossman, 1998). In the wake of the National Security Act of 1947 and the 1949 reorganization, Johnson’s letters revealed an effort to consolidate the power of the SecDef, as well as his own stature.

57 Diagnosed with depression, he apparently committed suicide by jumping from the 16th floor of the Bethesda Naval Medical Center on 22 May 1949. 156

Marine Corps dissent to desegregation.58 Marine Corps dissent to EO 9981 occurred simultaneously with U.S. Army dissent, although with different results.

Evidence on Marine Corps dissent reached a high point in the wake of EO 9981 and is briefly mentioned here to complement U.S. Army dissent, providing historical perspective for the period of late 1948 to early 1949.

Marine Corps Commandant Clifton B. Cates summed up Corps dissent in 1949:

The problem of segregation is not the responsibility of the Armed Forces but is a problem of the nation. Changing national policy in this respect through the Armed Forces is a dangerous path to pursue in as much as it affects the ability of the National Military Establishment to fulfill its mission. (1949, Facts on File, p. 133, as cited in Mershon & Schlossman, 1998, p. 204, and Nalty & MacGregor, 1981, p. 184)

Characterizing desegregation as inflammatory, Marine Corps testimony to the first Fahy Committee hearing replied that Fahy was “making a problem instead of solving one” (1949, Facts on File, p. 133, as cited in Mershon & Schlossman, 1998, p. 204, and

Nalty & MacGregor, 1981, p. 184).

Air Force embraces desegregation. Facing some internal dissent to desegregation from some Air Force officers,59 Secretary of the Air Force (SecAF)

Symington viewed the Fahy Committee and EO 9981 as measures empowering his pro- desegregation initiatives. Air Force Major General Nugent proudly noted for the Fahy

Committee on 13 January 1949 the distinct and unique position of the Air Force as contrary to that of the U.S. Army:

58 The desegregation of the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force is offered here as a counterbalance to U.S. Army dissent and is a potential area for future research. 59 Some Air Force officers dissenting over desegregation cited a widely circulated Air Force report calling Negro officers below average in “common sense, practical imagination . . . not dependable” (as cited in Gropman, 1978, p. 42). 157

Negro personnel may be assigned to any position vacancy for which qualified, and may be permitted to attend appropriate service schools . . . based upon merit and ability of the individuals concerned and without reference to ‘Negro quotas’ or ‘Negro vacancies.’ (Gropman, 1978, p. 118)

The Plaindealer proclaimed 1 month later: “Lockburn Airbase will soon see the end of the segregated Air Force field. Reason: AF to begin full integration of Negros in all branches” (Here and There, 1949). While the U.S. Army considered yet another formal dissent memorandum, trying to keep plans out of the press (K. Royall, personal correspondence, 29 March 1949), the Air Force approach was the exact opposite. On 22

January 1949, the Air Force issued a press release stating that it had completed plans for full integration.

Findings for Part 4: Army of One—Army as Lone Dissenter

(February 1949–January 1950)

Overview

This U.S. Army–specific section comprises evidence occurring between U.S.

Army leadership and the Fahy Committee, with occasional evidence from press reports as both sides tried to leverage public opinion. Evidence toward the end of the period also involves the president as the Fahy Committee became increasingly stymied at overcoming U.S. Army dissent. As Table 4.6 reveals, 26 dissent events cross-walked to evidence occurred. In this period, the U.S. Army would realize dissent over desegregation was a lost cause; the end of the period marks the beginning of the culmination of U.S.

Army dissent over desegregation.

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Table 4.6 Part 4: Historical Evidence/Desegregation Timeline Date Item Significance 28 Mar General Bradley to Fahy Cherry picks data? Reenlistments up. The majority 49 Committee “is satisfied with pay.” Any radical changes will impact ability to win battles. 29 Mar Royall to White House/ Royall uses sociological statements and historical 49 Royall’s statement to Fahy on experience in dissent. Army not an instrument for 28 Mar 49 social evolution. Army has a Negro problem because Negro less qualified. NJ NG rates decrease. “Neither race takes to idea of integration.” 28 Apr “The Negro in the Army”: Factual report states where Negro units currently 49 Army report prepared by serve in “separate units.” Royall’s office. Army closes enlistments in April 11 May Press release USAF dissent ends. “Secretary Johnson approves 49 Air Force polices for equality of treatment and opportunity.” 12 May Internal Fahy memo for Army school system—under a quota, it is still 49 committee; Fahy also prejudice. Army is “stirring in its stumps.” The recommends that Army abolish most qualified probably wouldn’t enlist because of 10% discriminatory practices. 24 May Initial Recommendations Army sets racial quotas for schools. Enlistment 49 Report of the Fahy Committee; quota taken up, better qualified Negros locked out, Gordon Gray is now acting i.e., in April quota was full. SecArmy 26 May Gray to Johnson (SecDef) + Social environment prevents Negro from 49 Fahy Committee analysis on developing leadership skills. Army justifies 10%. 30 May 30 May E. W. Kenworthy, executive Refutes the Army’s contention that it now assented 49 secretary of Fahy Committee, with and embraced EO 9981. writes committee 7 Jun 49 Press release Navy dissent ends. SecDef approves specific actions proposed by Navy to assure equality of treatment and opportunity for all Navy personnel. At the same time, Secretary Johnson asks the Department of the Army to restudy. 24 Jun 49 Chicago resident sends letter to Pro-segregation, says there will be violence if Truman and SecDef (added as desegregation happens, society will suffer, points outlier) to white revolutionary spirit in Chicago. 6 Jul 49 Fahy Interim Report blasts Army dissent = silence. Army has not fully Army responded to recommendations of the committee. Reaffirmed adherence to the quota system and the racial unit as fixed policy; it has proposed a program which in effect would harden and extend this policy. Retrogressive policy.

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Date Item Significance 15 Jul 49 Arkansas State Press article Social groups’ dissent. “NAACP ‘vigorously condemned’ Army policy relieving Negro chaplains from active duty unless there is an opening in an all Negro unit.” 25 Jul/27 Fahy to SecArmy Gray/to 34-page interim report; see above entry (6 Jul). Jul 49 Truman Aug-Sep Intercommittee correspondence Working with Army to try and abolish quota. Aug 8 Kenworthy to Fahy Can’t understand why Army dissents. 26 Sep Memo for president (three Fahy proposes four points. These four points shape 49 events) dissent for the next 9 months. 30 Sep SecDef makes announcement, Approves Army integration plan, refuses to copy 49 press release Fahy. Press release. 3 Oct 49 Negro press Apoplectic over the 30 Sep SecDef and SecArmy maneuver. The last we hear of SecDef on the issue. 6, 11 Oct Fahy to Truman Still see segregation in Army. Truman cover letter 49 correspondence (two events) in his own hand. Recommends Truman use power. But also wants to keep president out of it directly. Calls Army plan seriously impaired. 6 Oct 49 Truman press conference Issues guidance, uses power sparingly 29 Oct 49 Kenworthy memo to Dissent = obstruction. Kenworthy calls the committee situation “impossible” and writes that Army dissent involves two senior officers who are “bottlenecks.” Army is “obstructionist.” 3 Nov 49 Washington Post article Dissent = sabotage. Army order means that “broadened racial policy” is becoming “meaningless” and the new order is an attempt at “sabotage.” 17 Nov SecArmy to Fahy, Utilization Fahy warns will not approve, threatens to go to 49 of Negro Manpower in Army press. 25 Nov and new Army plan 49 3 Dec/13 NY Senator Ives writes Urges Truman to use power. Dec 49 Truman/Truman reply 16 Jan 50 Fahy to Truman Army accepts three of four recommendations in conference of 14 Jan. The Army issues Special Regulations No. 600-629-1, “Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army,” the same day as Fahy’s letter to Truman. Note: EO indicates Executive Order; NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; NG, National Guard; NJ, New Jersey; SecArmy, Secretary of the Army; SecDef, Secretary of Defense; USAF, U.S. Air Force.

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Historical Context

In the early days of 1949, the victory in World War II became ingrained in the

American public. Successful three- and four-star commanders during World War II were now at the pinnacles of power. Fahy realized the public held the generals in high regard and hoped to avoid conflict with the military over the desegregation issue. Reluctant to use the full power of the committee and EO 9981 to force compliance, Fahy instead sought to convince the services to eliminate segregation.

The public was divided. Post-war recession had set in. Truman upset Thomas

Dewey in the November 1948 presidential election, winning the majority of votes in the electoral college but not holding a popular majority. In December, Alger Hiss was indicted for perjury, denying he passed state secrets to the Communists. Plans were under way for the birth of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to stem the Communist tide in Europe. The Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated several prominent movie stars and officials in mid-1949 for alleged Communist ties (Dalfiume, 1969; MacGregor,

1981; Mershon & Schlossman, 1998).

Presentation of Evidence

During World War II, Lieutenant General Omar Bradley commanded the U.S.

Army II Corps during the invasion of Sicily, subsequently commanding the First U.S.

Army during the Normandy landings in 1944 and the 12th Army Group in France and

Germany. He was well known and respected by the public and soldiers alike. In 1949,

Bradley was Army chief of staff, and in August he was promoted to the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs, according to Bradley’s official U.S. Army biography (Center for

Military History, U.S. Army website http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/bradley/

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bradley.htm).60 In a statement to the Fahy Committee on 28 March 1949, Bradley stated he “had no prejudice in the matter” of desegregation (O. Bradley, Statement before the

President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces,

28 March 1949). However, to Bradley, the National Guard issue still festered:

Any system of manpower must be applicable in peace and war. It must be applicable to both the Regular Army and the National Guard. Because in war our replacement systems must be as simple as possible. It is complicated enough at best. You certainly could not have some units with complete integration of Negroes and Whites while others practice segregation. It naturally follows that the same principles must be applied to National Guard units of every state in the Union.

Bradley then drew a conclusion from the high rate of Negro reenlistments:

I believe that the Negro soldier, in general, considers his lot, from his viewpoint, a good one. Our high rate of re-enlistment indicates this. . . . It is estimated by our personnel as being approximately 75%. Evidently the majority of them is satisfied with the pay, the conditions of the service, the opportunities offered them and their treatment.

To Bradley, the high reenlistment rate pointed to the fact that the Army must be doing something right. Bradley made no mention of the 10% unemployment rate of

Negro men in 1949 or the fact that this unemployment rate exceeded that of white men by a 2:1 margin (Bureau of Labor Statistics Data).

Bradley noted segregation had its advantages: it “might remove any false charges that equal opportunities are not provided. It would simplify administration.61 However, in the following paragraphs he devoted much more attention to disadvantages of complete integration:

60 According to the Center for Military History, despite a distinguished World War II record, Bradley’s results as chairman from 1949 to 1953 were “mixed.” 61 Solution presentation is a dissent tactic generally employed by the most competent dissenters. See Kassing and Kava (2013) Upward Dissent Scale in chapter 2. 162

[Desegregation] might very seriously affect voluntary enlistments, both Negro and White. It might cause great dissatisfaction among Negroes if they did not receive their percentage of higher non-commissioned officer grades. And, of course, any system of selection within an organization based upon anything but free competition would be contrary to our American system.

In addition, such a system of complete integration might seriously affect morale and thus battle efficiency.

In his closing statement, Bradley alleged that Americans were not ready to accept integration while pointing to social problems within Army life: “The big problems arise after work or training hours, in living quarters and social gatherings.” The Army was special, not like the other services (which did not dissent with desegregation).

SecArmy Royall also made a statement to the committee. On 29 March, he forwarded a hard copy of his statement to Clark Clifford, noting his concern in a cover letter that it not be made public.

Attached is a copy of the statement I made to Fahy Committee yesterday. While it does not have a classification, I am trying to give it no large circulation as it would be unwise to have it get to the press at this stage of the Committee’s deliberation. (K. Royall, personal correspondence to Clifford, 29 March 1949)

Royall’s statement a day earlier is an 8-page dissent of EO 9981 and U.S. Army desegregation. Royall drew upon sociological statements and historical experience.

The Army is not an instrument for social evolution. It is not the Army’s job either to favor or to impede social doctrines. . . .

The history of two world wars has demonstrated that in general Negro troops have been less qualified than white troops for the performance of certain types of military service. . . . The Gillem Board Report . . . contained specific statements on this question and the real opinion of nearly all combat officers supports these conclusions. (K. Royall, Statement before the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces, 28 March 1949)

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Royall, like Bradley, drew the conclusion that if Negroes were enlisting and re- enlisting in large numbers, the U.S. Army segregationist policy must be working . . . and working better than any other service that embraced desegregation:

The voluntary enlistment situation is even more illuminating. Despite the knowledge that the Army has a partial segregation policy, a steadily increasing number of Negroes have enlisted in the Army, incidentally more than ever enlisted in the Army before—or for that matter in any military service.62

Royall then addressed the recently desegregated New Jersey National Guard, characterizing desegregation as a failure:

But a more disturbing factor is developing in this unit. . . . In the last four months the National Guard of the forty-seven states and District of Columbia have increased in number, the average of such increase being 11½%. But the New Jersey National Guard has decreased by 6%—the only decrease of the Nation. (K. Royall, Statement before the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces, 28 March 1949)

Royall ended his discussion of the National Guard there, leaving the listener (or reader) to speculate if desegregation had an adverse impact upon enlistment rates and readiness.63

Royall stated that his dissent over desegregation emanated from concerns over military efficiency and readiness. Internal committee letters to Fahy revealed internal thoughts on strategies to address the dissention on readiness:

I wonder if the one chance of getting something done isn’t 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 efficiency? . . . Can it be that the whole policy of segregation . . .

62 Enlistments were higher in the U.S. Army: the U.S. Army was larger than all the other services combined. 63 For direct factual appeal to work as a dissent tactic, it must present all sides of the argument (Kassing, 2009). 164

ADVERSELY AFFECTS MORALE AND EFFICIENCY? (E. Kenworthy, personal correspondence to Fahy, 10 March 1949)

A week after the hearings, the SecDef issued a memorandum for the three service secretaries with the subject line “Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed

Services.” On 6 April 1949, SecDef Johnson directed:

It is the policy of the national Military Establishment that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the Armed Forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.

He also directed the services to examine their present policies and determine what forward steps should be taken in light of this policy and EO 9981. He gave the services until 1 May to respond (Johnson Memorandum for Service Secretaries, “Equality of

Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services,” 6 April 1949).

Fahy Committee members were not impressed with the U.S. Army’s vague response to their queries during testimony. Subsequent testimony analyzing U.S. Army utilization of personnel found that no strength authorization for Negroes existed for 198 of the U.S. Army’s 490 military occupational specialties.64 The committee found that many of the 198 were under strength even though Negro manpower existed. Segregation denied Negro soldiers schools needed to move up the ranks and fill critical positions.

Segregation led to unfilled positions and readiness problems (Fahy Committee hearings,

29 April 1949; MacGregor, 1981, p. 354; Kenworthy, enclosure to personal correspondence to C. Fahy, 30 May 1949). The U.S. Army cited information in their own internal report, “Today the Negro soldier is serving the Army in more than 250 separate units in every branch of the service except JAGD [Judge Advocate General Department],

64 Mershon and Schlossman (1998, p. 209) put the figure at the U.S. Army excluding 179 of 530 military occupational specialties. 165

IGD [Inspector General Department], and the Veterinary Corps” (“The Negro in the

Army,” April 1949, p. 1). “Since 1867 . . . the Negro has been recognized as part of the

U.S. Army.”

U.S. Navy dissent ends. Negroes comprised the vast majority of the Stewards

Branch. The Fahy Committee finding that the power of naval tradition, including social and cultural histories of placing only Negroes in the Stewards Branch, exacerbated segregation. In addition, stewards could not hold chief petty officer rank. SecDef Johnson also took issue with the U.S. Navy’s high entrance standards, which seemingly closed

U.S. Navy enlistment to Negroes.65 The U.S. Navy ended its dissent and revised its desegregation plan, which Johnson approved on 7 June 1949. The plan embraced the spirit of EO 9981 and the Fahy Commission, promoting chief stewards to chief petty officers as quickly as July 1949 and taking steps to recruit more Negroes regardless of qualification (MacGregor, 1981; Mershon & Schlossman, 1998). A press release stated:

Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson today approved specific actions proposed by the Department of the Navy to assure equality of treatment and opportunity for all navy personnel. At the same time, Secretary Johnson asked the Department of the Army to restudy its position. (National Military Establishment, Office of Public Information, 7 June 1949)

U.S. Air Force dissent ends. On 11 May 1949, the SecDef announced in a press release that he approved the U.S. Air Force policy on desegregation. This public move effectively ended any U.S. Air Force dissent.66

65 In 1949, Congress amended the 1947 National Security Act, granting the Office of the Secretary of Defense more power over the services. In 1951, the Department of Defense adopted a uniform qualification test and accepted recruits from all aptitude levels (Mershon & Schlossman, 1998, p. 202). 66 The end of U.S. Air Force dissent also marked an end to the much-celebrated 332d Fighter Wing. Now known as the Tuskegee Airmen, the 11 May announcement ended the tenure of the unit on the active rolls of the Air Force. The Plaindealer reported on 20 May 1949: 166

Secretary Johnson Approves Air Force Polices for Equality of Treatment and Opportunity—Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson today approved policies proposed by the Air Force to assure equality of treatment and opportunity for all members of its personnel. . . . The proposals to assure equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the Air Force, regardless of race, color, religion or national origin, provide for the assignment and utilization of Negro personnel on the basis of individual capacity. It permits general assignment of such individuals on an Air Force-wide basis. Heretofore, Negroes had been assigned only to special type units. (National Military Establishment, Office of Public Information, 11 May 1949)

The U.S. Army digs in. Acting SecArmy Gray67 presented a revised U.S. Army plan to the SecDef on 26 May 1949. “There are currently no U.S. Army schools from which Negro officers and enlisted men are barred solely because of color,” the report declared (G. Gray, personal correspondence to Johnson, 26 May 1949). “Enlisted men are actually assigned to every arm and service.” The memorandum stated the 10% quota was necessary because “a slice of the Negro population will show that few Negroes (18 out of each 100) have an intelligence score of GCT 90 or higher, and the great bulk are between

55 and 75.”

Monitoring the situation, Kenworthy wrote Fahy on 30 May refuting the U.S.

Army’s contention that it now assented with and embraced EO 9981.

The crack, all Negro tactical 332d Fighter wing, now stationed at Lockbourne under the command of Col. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., will soon go down in history as one of the most colorful Negro units in the history of the armed forces of this country. The passing of the unit was heralded in Washington last Wednesday when Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson approved a new policy of distributing Negros throughout the air force. . . . Johnson issued a directive to the armed forces last April 6 to shelve the long-standing traditional segregatory patterns. . . . Col. Davis, highest ranking Negro Air Force Officer [will] attend Air University. (“End Segregated Air Unit; To Be Integrated with Whites,” 20 May 1949) 67 Royall resigned on 27 April 1949, one day after Secretary of the Navy Sullivan resigned. While Royall made more than one previous request to leave his post, it would be presumptuous to characterize his resignation over failing to successfully dissent over EO 9981. Nonetheless, one historian author of the Historical Office of the Office of the Secretary of Defense noted Royall was a southerner with segregationist leanings who was blocking EO 9981 implementation and was therefore an embarrassment to Truman (Rearden, 1984). 167

The Army says a proportionate number of spaces in the troop basis—”including all grades and types of jobs”—are reserved for Negroes. Negroes are found in all grades up to lieutenant colonel . . . but they are not found in all types of jobs. . . . There are a great many MOS [military occupational specialties] which have no authorized or actual Negro representation.68

Addressing the leadership and qualifications issues, Kenworthy wrote:

The Army’s position is that the utilization of its manpower must be towards attaining success on future battlefields. This is a recurring Army argument but it seems to me to be dangerous doctrine. . . . If the Army believes that Negroes are incapable of leading men, then there should be no Negro officers.

Kenworthy also addressed the U.S. Army unit of Negro segregation.

I have had serious doubts of the [Army] wisdom of making the unit of segregation smaller than the company. A company is the smallest administrative unit. By segregating Negroes on the platoon level, you would have, in my opinion, far more likelihood of trouble than in man-to-man integration. In a paper which General James K. Parsons wrote for the War College in 1922, he said that he thought most racial friction developed between groups rather than individuals.

About the same time as this correspondence, the Fahy Committee released an interim report. Suspecting the U.S. Army of using obfuscation in its dissent, as well as supplying misleading information (Mershon & Schlossman, 1998, p. 210), on 24 May

1949, the committee recommended the U.S. Army assign military occupational specialties without regard to race, abolish racial quotas for schools, and end the 10% quota system (President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the

Armed Services, 1949).

Relations between the committee and the U.S. Army reached a low point in the summer of 1949. One author characterized it as the “Summer of Discontent”

68 Kenworthy was drawing on the 24 May 1949 Initial Recommendations Report of the Fahy Committee which stated, “At the present time all MOS [military occupational specialties] are theoretically open to all qualified personnel.” Actually, however, many military occupational specialties were in effect closed to Negroes because Negro Table of Organization and Equipment Units and Table of Distribution Units do not carry those particular specialties. 168

(MacGregor, 1981, p. 362), while others called the summer “bitter and fruitless”

(Mershon & Schlossman, 1998, p. 211). On 5 July 1949, SecArmy Gray and Army Chief of Staff Bradley presented another revised plan, their dissent this time completely ignoring the suggestions of the Fahy Committee. The U.S. Army sought to form an internal board to examine and review the fundamental policies for the utilization of

Negro manpower (E. W. Kenworthy, personal correspondence to Fahy Committee, 6 July

1949). Kenworthy, the executive secretary of the Fahy Commission, wrote:

The Army has not fully responded to either of the recommendations of the Committee. It has not only reaffirmed its adherence to the quota system and the racial unit as fixed policy; it has proposed a program which in effect would harden and extend this policy. Therefore, the program outlined is inconsistent with the policy of the President and the Secretary of Defense. It is in some ways retrogressive. (E. W. Kenworthy, personal correspondence to Fahy Committee, 6 July 1949)

Twenty days later, Fahy advised President Truman that the proposed U.S. Army integration policy should not be accepted as fulfilling the provisions of EO 9981. In a nutshell, the conflict between the military and the civilian came down to the racial quota issue.

The Committee is of the opinion that the Army should abolish the racial quota now and substitute a system of enlistment quotas based on the normal distribution of mental qualifications during World War II as measured by the Army General Classification Test. (C. Fahy, personal correspondence to H. S. Truman, 25 July 1949)

In a letter to Secretary Gray on the same date, Fahy took the U.S. Army to task over the quota issue:

It makes numbers the criterion of equal opportunity. . . . It is equally wrong, and probably more destructive of Army efficiency, to rule arbitrarily that there should be a suitable number of positions in each occupational field for Negroes and to

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activate new Negro T/O&E69 units in order to provide spaces for these men. What if there are not qualified Negroes for these positions? Will the Army use second and third-rate men . . . merely because . . . having created the racial unit, it must staff it racially? (C. Fahy, personal correspondence to Gray, 25 July 1949)

In response to the U.S. Army proposal for the internal board, Fahy, concerned about the power and authority of his own committee, wrote that the supposed U.S. Army board could not be a “substitute for its [the Fahy Committee’s] own responsibility or defer to it” (Fahy, personal correspondence, 27 July 1949).

Two days later, Fahy wrote the president about the U.S. Army’s proposed plan circumventing EO 9981.

The Army has submitted to the Committee a proposed plan of action which meets in some parts our recommendations, but which does not, in our opinion, satisfy the requirements of Executive Order 9981.

Fahy proposed:

• Open up all classes of Army jobs to qualified personnel without regard to race • Open all courses in Army Schools to qualified personnel without regard to race • Assign and use personnel upon completion of school courses without regard to race • Abolish all racial quota and substitute it for a quota system based on the distribution of mental grades as determined by the General Classification Test. (C. Fahy, personal correspondence to H. S. Truman, 27 July 1949)

Summers in Washington, DC, are often a slow time for government, as officials return home for extended breaks. The Fahy Committee kept working despite the impasse between the U.S. Army and the committee. E. W. Kenworthy reviewed the U.S. Army’s

69 Table of Organization and Equipment—an official U.S. Army document listing the organization, equipment, and personnel in a unit. For example, a mechanized infantry company might have 103 personnel and a field artillery battery, 96. Such a document helps allocate resources. 170

own historical files regarding employment of Negro troops in World War II vis-à-vis

GCT scores. Kenworthy wrote to Fahy on 8 August:

It is a history of unrelieved headaches. . . . I cannot understand how the Army can defend its racial policy by appealing to experience. . . . Searching for a way to get better use out of them, Army ground Forces proposed, and G-370worked out, a plan for forming Negro combat units on a GCT basis. (E. W. Kenworthy, personal correspondence to Fahy, 8 August 1949)

The U.S. Army, courtesy copied on Fahy’s late-July correspondence to the president, also continued to work through the summer. At a meeting with the U.S. Army on 16 September, Fahy must have been pleased when the U.S. Army told him that it no longer dissented with any of the Fahy proposals but one: the racial quota. A delighted

Fahy wrote to the president on 26 September:

Mr. Gray informed us that he was prepared to meet the recommendations of the President’s Committee with respect to (1) opening up all Army general job classifications to qualified men regardless of race; (2) abolishing the racial quotas for attendance in courses of study in Army Service Schools; (3) assigning graduates of Army school so as to utilize the men without regard to race.

There remains the problem of the over-all racial quota. The Army presently restricts Negro strength to 10 per cent of total Army strength. . . .

On September 16, we and the Army agreed to work out the quota problem together. . . .

It is the Committee’s expectation that will be able within a few weeks to make a formal report. . . .

Despite the progress, dissent would continue.

Negro press and a U.S. Army end-around. In the months preceding September, the Negro press and several Negro groups took Gray and Johnson to task, dissenting over the slow pace of U.S. Army change. In response to a U.S. Army policy restricting Negro

70 G-3: U.S. Army Operations and Plans. 171

chaplains to Negro units, the Arkansas State Press reported on 15 July that the “NAACP

‘vigorously condemned’ U.S. Army policy relieving Negro chaplains from active duty unless there is an opening in an all Negro unit” (“Charges of Bias Against Negro

Chaplains,” 1949). The front-page article continued, citing a letter to the U.S. Army chief of chaplains:

NAACP Assistant Special Counsel Franklin WH. Williams protested the present Army assignment policy as discriminatory in view of the President’s recent Executive Order and its implementation by Secretary of Defense Louis A. Johnson.

The Negro press cast Truman in a very good light, despite the dissent, reporting on President Truman’s support of the NAACP.

Stressing the fact that the job of implementing a non-discrimination policy cannot be left to government officials alone, the Chief Executive stated [in a message to the NAACP annual conference] that “In a responsible democratic government, officialdom moves only as rapidly as an intelligent and persistent citizenry demands.” The President urged “the support of the public and the active cooperation of such organizations of the NAACP” in the battle to make our democracy a reality for all citizens. (“President Truman Sends Message to NAACP Meeting,” 1949)

The ultimate form of dissent is mutiny and insurrection, as noted in chapter 2. The

New York Times reported in mid-July that the U.S. Army was in a state of “private insurrection” in dissent over EO 9981 in order to “preserve a pattern of bigotry which caricatures the democratic cause in every corner of the world” (New York Times, 1949).

Secretary Gray then gave several interviews stating the policy was under review.

Three days after Fahy sent his letter to the president, SecArmy Gray sent his latest proposal to SecDef Johnson. Dated 30 September, it is a slightly different version of

Fahy’s 26 September points 1 through 3:

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• Military Occupational Specialties will be open to qualified personnel without regard to race or color. • The present negro [sic] quotas for selection to attend Army schools will be abolished and selection will be made from the best qualified personnel without regard to race or color. • A board of senior Army officers will be convened from time to time to determine current progress. . . .

I find that for the foreseeable future negro [sic] units must be maintained and that no practicable substitute has been developed. (Gray, memorandum to Johnson, 30 September 1949)

That same day, Johnson quickly went public, approving the U.S. Army plan on 30

September in a press release that made a flattering mention of Fahy:

In submitting the new program to the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray pointed out that he had discussed with Charles Fahy, Chairman of the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces, the Committee’s suggestions and the Army’s proposed program. (National Military Establishment, Office of Public Information, 30 September 1949)

The press release kept much the same language as Gray’s 30 September memo to the SecDef, including the quota issue, with an unprecedented mention of the 1946 Gillem

Board:

Mr. Gray declared that the Army was continuing its study of the present policy of regulating Negro original enlistments in the Army, which is now based on the population ratio of Negroes to the total population—currently about 10 percent.

He pointed out that present policies concerning the utilization of Negro manpower in the Army are based on recommendations of a board, headed by Lieutenant General A.C. Gillem, which made its report in 1946 and which itself recommended a periodic review of Army policies. (National Military Establishment, Office of Public Information, 30 September 1949)

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The Negro press was upset. “Negro Leaders Urging Commander in Chief to

Reject ‘New’ Army Plan” was the headline of an article in the Arkansas State Press.71

President Truman was urged Wednesday to overrule Secretary of Defense Johnson and disapprove the “new” Army program for treatment of Negro enlisted men because of its failure to spell out the elimination of segregation.

In a letter to the Chief Executive, Grant Reynolds and A. Phillip Randolph, co- chairman of the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training, New York City, accused Army . . . of brazen insubordination to the stated goal of the Commander-in-Chief by their “obstinate retention of all-Negro units and of racial quotas.” . . .

There is nothing in this allegedly ‘new’ Army policy to benefit the mass of Negro servicemen or to forward the aims of your civil rights program. We therefore urge you to overrule Defense Secretary Johnson who apparently wearied of bucking the Army brick wall. By its action, the Army has prolonged the federal caste system which northern governors use as a convenient excuse to maintain segregated National Guards. It is almost impossible to conceive what was contained in the two plans originally submitted by Army brass and found unacceptable at the time by Mr. Johnson. The ‘new’ Army policy is all the more discouraging in the light of the progress being made in the Air Force and Navy. . . . We believe you are morally obligated to reject it [the Army plan].

Americans for Democratic Action wrote the President on 1 October and released a press statement on 3 October. The group expressed “dismay” at the actions of Johnson and Gray, urging the president to overturn the SecDef action. The press release used stronger language, calling the latest U.S. Army policy a “sham.” The Americans for

Democratic Action wrote that the U.S. Army “pretended to act” to embrace racial equality and urged the president to “act directly, unhampered by the delaying tactics” of others. Just as noteworthy, the release caught the eye of the president’s senior staff, as noted by the handwritten “Mr. Nash—what about this?” in the margin of the report (Press

71 Considered “Negro press” according to the historical repository search engine “African American Newspapers Series 1827—1998 (Readex)” site, accessible via link from George Washington University library, History Databases webpage. 174

Release by Americans for Democratic Action, with attachments, 3 October 1949. Truman

Papers, Nash Files, Press Releases and Newspaper Clippings).

Fahy, noting the SecDef hastily approved72 the U.S. Army plan that effectively ignored the president’s committee, called the president on 3 October. “Mr. Fahy would prefer that the President refrain from making any comment until his committee meets. . . .

He is not sure his committee will agree that the Army is going far enough” (P. Nash, personal correspondence to H. S. Truman, 3 October 1949). On 6 October, Fahy wrote the president that the U.S. Army plan

is seriously impaired by the omission to provide that, after the men have completed their Military Occupations Specialties and have completed their school courses, they shall be assigned according to their qualifications and without regard to race or color. (C. Fahy, personal correspondence to H. Truman, 6 October 1949)

As to next steps, in the letter Fahy proposed three courses of action: Gray and

Johnson issue a supplementary statement approved by the president and the committee, the president tell the U.S. Army to meet with the Fahy Committee, or the commission issue a statement of its own. Fahy recommended calling the U.S. Army plan an interim progress report.

Also on 6 October, The Washington Post wrote that the U.S. Army policy “does not go very far” and that opportunities for Negroes were “severely constricted by the continuation of the segregated assignment policy” (“Race in the Army,” 1949).

The Post called out the SecArmy for his latest plan to desegregate as

double-talk. The new policy purports to do something it does not do in fact. Moreover, the report masquerades under the statement that the policy has been discussed with Chairman Charles Fahy. . . . This [is] foot-dragging.

72 Circumvention dissent tactic. 175

The Post also laid some blame with the SecDef: “It is hard to understand how

Secretary Johnson could have given the Army report his imprimatur.”

Truman acts. Also on 6 October, the president gave his 200th press conference.

Apparently, he made a decision on Fahy’s three options:

Q. Mr. President, does the Army plan for integration of Negro personnel meet the requirements of your Executive order on equality of treatment and opportunity in the armed services?

THE PRESIDENT. The last report of the Secretary of Defense was a progress report. There will be continuing recommendations from the committee which I appointed. Eventually we will reach, I 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.

Q. Mr. President, is your eventual goal integration of the races in the Army?

THE PRESIDENT. Yes. (Truman News Conference, 6 October 1949)

Truman prepared to make another decision. On 11 October, Fahy again wrote the president a more formal letter, enclosing a 4-page “Interim Report for the President” based on the Johnson endorsement of the Gray plan. The report noted that “approval had previously been given by the Secretary of Defense to policies of the Air Force (May 11,

1949) and the Navy (June 7 1949). . . . The policy of the Army remained an active discussion” (C. Fahy, personal correspondence to H. Truman, 11 October 1949). “The principle of equality of treatment of opportunity is not carried forward and the manpower of the Army is not utilized to best advantage.”

Truman read the letter and the report. He commented in a cover letter (Figure

4.4).

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Figure 4.4. Truman’s comments on Fahy’s letter and “Interim Report for the President.”

In the wake of Truman’s remarks to the press 6 October, and in directing his military aide to “take it up with” the SecDef, Truman’s position on the U.S. Army dissent was clear. No evidence exists that the SecDef played anything but a minor role after the

11 October note: I could find no archival evidence that SecDef Johnson issued any guidance, statements, or directives on the U.S. Army policy from October to November

1949.

Nonetheless, the U.S. Army continued to dissent over desegregation, forging ahead with new guidance in reissuing and revising Circular 124, the 27 April 1946 policy on race, “Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army Policy,” which maintained segregation. E. W. Kenworthy caught wind of the U.S. Army move, telling Fahy, who promptly informed the White House via David Niles (E. W. Kenworthy, personal

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correspondence to Fahy Committee, 29 October 1949). Kenworthy called the situation

“impossible,” describing U.S. Army senior officers as “bottlenecks.”

An example of their determination to obstruct any new Army policy [favoring desegregation] is the statement sent out . . . to commanding generals forbidding them to use Negroes except in Negro units and in ‘Negro spaces’ in overhead installations. (E. W. Kenworthy, personal correspondence to Fahy Committee, 29 October 1949)

The Washington Post reported on 3 November 1949 73 that the U.S. Army order meant that broadened racial policy was becoming “meaningless” and the new order was an attempt at “sabotage” (Figure 4.5). The Negro press was more kind, reporting that the

U.S. Army plan was “inadequate” (The Negro Star, “Current Calls for End of Army

Segregation,” 4 November 1949).

Minnesota Governor Youngdahl had enough of U.S. Army dissent and declared he would issue an EO of his own on 22 November “admitting Negroes to the National

Guard of Minnesota on an integrated basis” (“Minnesota Gov. Hailed by NAACP for

Jimcro [sic] Ban,” 11 November 1949). The front-page article in the Arkansas State

Press noted the NAACP congratulated Youngdahl74 for his “unequivocal statement.”

The pressure forced Gray to backtrack. He acknowledged “that an administrative message sent to the U.S. Army Commanders on 27 October 1949 violates the announced policy and that as soon as it came to his attention he ordered it rescinded” (Department of

Defense, Office of Public Information, 3 November 1949). He attached the press release in a letter to Fahy 17 November, but also stated he

73 MacGregor (1981) and Mershon and Schlossman (1998) believed Kenworthy leaked the U.S. Army plans to the press, a planned maneuver to shift the balance of power and the initiative back to the committee. 74 President Truman may have been impressed too. He appointed the former judge to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia immediately upon completion of his governorship in 1951. 178

Figure 4.5. Newspaper clipping, “Army Runaround,” 3 November 1949.

declared that the Army is prepared to adopt a substitute for the numerical quota if one could be devised which afforded assurance against a disproportion between negro and other personnel. . . . I am compelled to conclude that nothing has been suggested by your committee which approached this requirement. (G. Gray, personal correspondence to C. Fahy, 17 November 1949)

The U.S. Army continued its dissent, issuing its “new” policy on 16 November

1949, stating, “Grouping of Negro units with white units is accepted Army policy”

(Board of Officers on Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Post-War Army, 1949).

Despite Gray’s 17 November correspondence to Fahy, the committee still had not officially received the new U.S. Army policy as late as 27 November.

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In a telephone conversation with Mr. Fahy at 11:00 a.m., November 27, Mr. Fahy said that . . . neither he nor members of the Committee had yet received from the Army copies of this revision, although he had been in telephone conversation with General Byers. (E. W. Kenworthy, personal correspondence to Fahy Committee, 27 November 1949)

New York Senator Irving Ives wrote the president over the continued U.S. Army intransigence on 5 December.

My attention has been directed to an apparently well-substantiated report that the Army, despite your policy pronouncement to the contrary, is still adhering to a policy of racial segregation. . . . Furthermore, I have been advised that communications dealing with this matter, which have been written by the co-Chairman of the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training have been not only unanswered, but completely ignored. . . . I respectfully urge you, as Commander-in-Chief, to intervene, not only for the purpose of insisting that your own Order be obeyed . . . (I. Ives, personal correspondence to H. S. Truman, 5 December 1949).

Truman, in Key West, Florida, cordially responded almost immediately (Figure

4.6):

Figure 4.6. Truman’s letter to Ives, 13 December 1949.

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Fahy tried to husband the power of the presidency, to use the power sparingly and as a last resort. In keeping with his earlier attempts to delay any official White House statements, Fahy also wanted to keep the power of the U.S. Army and Department of

Defense intact. “Mr. Fahy replied that he was not trying to usurp the prerogatives of either Secretary Gray or Secretary Johnson” (E. W. Kenworthy, personal correspondence to Fahy Committee, 28 November 1949).

Fahy threatened to go public or to go to the president directly, or both.

Mr. Fahy replied . . . he would notify the White House of the Committee’s disapproval; furthermore, he would issue a statement to the press making it clear that the Committee had not approved the Army’s policy. If this were done, Mr. Fahy said, then a situation would arise which had so far been successfully avoided; i.e., a controversy in public. (E. W. Kenworthy, personal correspondence to Fahy Committee, 28 November 1949)

Fahy chose to write the president on 14 December. “With respect to the opening of all school courses and military occupational specialties without regard to race or color, the U.S. Army has not met the recommendations of your Committee,” Fahy wrote. “With respect to the 10 percent Negro quota, the Army and the Committee are continuing discussions” (C. Fahy to H. S. Truman, personal correspondence, 14 December 1949).

However, according to Philleo Nash, Truman’s advisors would order the U.S. Army to consent to Fahy Committee recommendations (E. W. Kenworthy, memorandum of conversation with P. Nash, 9 December 1949; MacGregor, 1981, p. 369).

Endgame: U.S. Army consent. Within a month, U.S. Army dissent would end.

The SecArmy requested a meeting with Charles Fahy for 27 December 1949. Gray received from the White House Fahy’s recommendations and consented in principle to a phased-in approach on the quota question (Dalfiume, 1968). Fahy wrote the committee that he “felt much closer to agreement than any time in the past” (C. Fahy, personal

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correspondence, 27 December 1949). The Fahy Committee met again with the U.S. Army on 14 January 1950 to discuss the earlier meeting and the latest U.S. Army proposal, a rare Saturday meeting. Writing the president on 16 January 1950, Fahy said:

The Department of the Army, in a personal conference of the Committee with the Secretary of the Army on Saturday, January 14, 1950, approved a text substantially in the form recommended by the Committee.

The Department of the Army has now accepted three of the four specific recommendations made thus far by the Committee, namely (1) the opening of all military occupational specialties without regard to race or color; (2) the opening of all Army school courses without regard to race or color; (3) the assignment of Negro personnel on the basis of qualification without regard to race or color. (C. Fahy, personal correspondence to H. S. Truman, 16 January 1950)

The quota issue still remained, but Fahy characterized the question as “still under discussion. . . . We remain confident of a successful solution.” The U.S. Army issued

Special Regulations No. 600-629-1, “Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army”

(Board of Officers on Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Post-War Army, 1946), the same day as Fahy’s letter to Truman.

Findings for Part 5: Dissent Ends, War Begins

(January 1950–June 1950)

Overview

This brief section covers the last vestiges of U.S. Army dissent. The U.S. Army did not consent to all of the Fahy recommendations: the 10% quota issue still remained.

Given the history of U.S. Army dissent, evidence revealed that the January 1950 events were viewed with some skepticism. Historical evidence revealed social support for the

U.S. Army terminating its dissent, as well as steps taken by high-level officials to ensure dissent could not occur in the future. Table 4.7 lists the evidence for Part 5. 182

Table 4.7 Part 5: Historical Evidence/Desegregation Timeline Date Item Significance 21 Jan 50 Press reaction Pro and con, some skeptical based on Army history. 7 Feb 50 Fahy to Truman Relations with Army are cordial, expects quota to end soon. 16 Feb 50 Kenworthy to Fahy Army and State Department continue dissent over Committee overseas desegregation. 27 Feb 50 Eric Sevareid report Points to USAF as model, pans any dissent statistics— there is no friction when Negroes and whites serve together. 27 Mar 50 Army field order to Dissent ends officially: all enlistments in the Army commanders within the overall recruiting quotas will be open to qualified applicants without regard to race or color. 22 May 50 Fahy press release Three programs of services are designed to end President press release segregation. Consensus was voluntarily achieved. Freedom to Serve Report delivered to Truman Press reaction (23 May) 19 Jun 50 Russell Amendment + Last vestiges of dissent. Senator adds rider to Draft Act press reports to keep segregation. Defeated. 27 Jun 50 Korean War begins 6 Jul 50 President Truman Leaves EO 9981 intact for future generations. disbands Fahy Committee Note: EO indicates Executive Order; USAF, U.S. Air Force; USMC, U.S. Marine Corps.

Historical Context

National security and social programs dominated the political landscape from late

1949 to early 1950. NATO was less than a year old. The United States lost its atomic bomb monopoly in September 1949. North Korea would invade South Korea on 25 June.

Domestically, Truman signed the Housing Act in the summer of 1949 to establish a federal housing policy and provide funding to inner-city slums, a key component of the

“Fair Deal” promise he made during the election, a bold plan for domestic economic reform. However, lack of congressional support, particularly among Southern Democrats,

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threatened to derail his plan. The economic slowdown did not bolster support for Truman

(Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, n.d.).

Presentation of Evidence

The apparent end of U.S. Army dissent over desegregation figured prominently in the Negro press. The Lighthouse and Informer of Columbia, South Carolina, reported on

21 January 1950:

Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray will report very soon a new policy of assigning qualified Negro personnel to Army units without regard to race, creed, or color. Gray’s order will change somewhat the traditional Army policy of discriminating against Negroes. (“New Army Policy Banning Segregation in Effect,” 21 January 1950)

However, prominent Negro leaders remained skeptical.

Negro leaders do not think that the policy will go far toward integrating into the total picture of the Army. . . . The policy will leave unchanged the 10 per cent Negro Army enlistment quota. (“New Army Policy Banning Segregation in Effect,” 21 January 1950)

The paper noted that the Air Force and Navy had complied with the Fahy

Committee, but the U.S. Army had “refused to budge.”

While the 10% quota issue remained, the U.S. Army did not openly dissent with moving towards desegregation. According to the evidence, the days of discontent that marked the relations between the U.S. Army and Fahy were gone. One Truman aide described the mood between the two parties:

Charles Fahy and the Secretary of the Army have had a friendly and encouraging talk on the Fahy Committee’s remaining recommendation—the substitution of an achievement quota for the present racial quota. (Niles, personal correspondence to H. S. Truman, 7 February 1950)

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Despite the cordiality, the U.S. Army continued to dissent with Fahy’s recommendation over the 10% quota issue, fearing a flood of Negros would inundate its ranks and lead to discipline problems. The U.S. Army pointed to the U.S. Air Force as a model where Negro enlistments exceeded the ratio of Negroes to the rest of the population, 16.4% from July to September 1949 (MacGregor, 1981, p. 372).

Citing the success of the U.S. Air Force integration model, Eric Sevareid, a CBS reporter, wrote in late February:

There is some excellent news at hand right now about the normally bad situation of racial discrimination in the Armed Forces. . . . The Air Force and Navy have already made some real progress. There are 26,000 Negroes in the Air Force; 71 percent are completely integrated—sleeping, studying, eating, side by side with whites. In a few months, all will be integrated. . . . In every place, the transition has occurred with remarkably little trouble. Even southern officers who do not like it tell the investigators, almost invariably, that integration is working. There is less friction, not more. (Eric Sevareid, report for CBS, 27 February 1950)

The U.S. Army also dissented with stationing of troops overseas without regard to race. The State Department continued to defer to the country in which Negro troops would be based. For example, the evidence revealed that the United Kingdom, Iceland,

Greenland, and Canada allowed the stationing of all U.S. servicemen without regard to race. U.S. Army brass told the Fahy Committee in February:

The policy of the State Department has been that, before Negro troops are sent to these areas, the acquiescence of the countries concerned should be obtained. The policy of the Department of Defense has been that, before sending Negro troops to those areas, it would confer with the Department of State. (E. W. Kenworthy, personal correspondence to Fahy Committee, 16 February 1950)

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Kenworthy also noted the Defense Department was inclined to take the view that

Negro troops being equal should be sent anywhere.75

Quota dissent ends. The SecArmy wrote the president on 1 March seeking an end to the quota issue. Gray offered to cease dissent over the 10% question with the caveat that

If, as a result of a fair trial of this new system, there ensues a disproportionate balance of racial strengths in the Army, it is my understanding that I have your authority to return to a system which will, in effect, control enlistments by race. (G. Gray, personal correspondence to H. S. Truman, 1 March 1950)

On 27 March 1950, the U.S. Army issued a field order to commanders: “Effective within the month of April, all enlistments in the Army within the overall recruiting quotas will be open to qualified applicants without regard to race or color” (Department of the

Army, order to field commanders, 27 March 1950, as cited in Mershon & Schlossman,

1998, p. 213). The matter was handled quietly; there were no press reports, no articles in

Negro newspapers, and no official press releases from the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense.

The Fahy Committee treated Gray warmly. Writing to SecArmy Frank Pace76 on

27 April 1950, Fahy recalled Gray’s contributions to ending his dissent of desegregation.

“In this cooperative undertaking, Secretary Gray played a considerable part and in successful issue of the Committee’s work with the U.S. Army is due in large measure to

75 Assistant Secretary of Defense James Burns wrote his State Department counterpart, Deputy Undersecretary of State Dean Rusk, on 13 February: “We feel that the policy of providing equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the Armed Forces . . . should be extended to all foreign countries in which the United States military personnel are called to serve” (Burns, personal correspondence to Rusk, 13 February 1950). Rusk replied on 1 March that he had “no objection” and looked forward to supporting equality of opportunity and treatment of all personnel. 76 Pace replaced Gray on 12 April 1950. Gray resigned to take a position as a special advisor to the president. 186

his personal interest and cooperation” (C. Fahy, personal correspondence to F. Pace, 27

April 1950).

However, to characterize these months as the complete end of dissent is premature. The U.S. Army slowly enacted new policies and the Fahy Committee remained skeptical. “The Fahy Committee was beginning to have doubt about just how everything would work out. Specifically, some members were wondering how they could be sure the Army would comply” (MacGregor, 1981, p. 374). Could the U.S. Army continue to dissent through “slow-rolling” desegregation?77

On 22 May 1950, the full Fahy Committee met with the president, delivering a final report entitled Freedom to Serve, Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the

Armed Services: A Report. Historical significance aside, the 82-page report took pains to address the last vestiges of U.S. Army dissent, addressing the pace of change.

Executive Order 9981, issued on July 26, 1948, declared it to be “the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.”

“This policy,” the President directed, “shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency, or morale.”

As this report is submitted it is too early to appraise the effect of the Army’s new policy. However, the Committee firmly believes that as the Army carries out the Committee’s recommendations which it has adopted, then within a relatively short time Negro soldiers will enjoy complete equality of treatment and opportunity in the Army. (Freedom to Serve, Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services: A Report, 1950)

77 As noted in chapter 2, slow-rolling is a form of dissensus employing a defy strategy, often enabling public spheres. It can often lead to escalation of conflict (Whelan, 2013). See also Bessner and Lorber (2012)—shirking as a dissent tactic at higher levels. Shirking often goes unpunished in civil-military contexts unless the civilian has the full support of the military. 187

The president issued a press statement that same day, declaring, “With a great deal of confidence that I learn from the Committee that the present programs of the three services are designed to accomplish the objectives of the President” and they will be carried out “within the reasonably near future” (The White House, Office of the Press

Secretary, 1950). The Fahy Committee also issued a similar statement.

The New York Times on 23 May reported that “several important things emerged” from Freedom to Serve and the work of the Fahy Committee. Noting that segregation was now “outlawed” in each of the services,

the steps taken have been voluntary in each of the service branches so that a maximum of cooperation could be assured. It would be useless to issue decrees if there were no disposition to abide by them. . . . What is required is agreement. (Freedom to Serve, 23 May 1950)

Historical Evidence—Epilogue

High-level U.S. Army dissent effectively ended 22 months after EO 9981.

President Truman subsequently disbanded the Fahy78 Committee on 6 July 1950, leaving it to the services to work out the details on implementation of desegregation. When asked what to do about EO 9981, Truman replied to Fahy that he would leave it in place. “At some later date, it may prove desirable to examine the effectuation of your Committee’s recommendations, which can be done under Executive Order 9981” (H. S. Truman, personal correspondence to C. Fahy, 6 July 1950).

78 Truman via a recess appointment later nominated Fahy to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. 188

However, dissent from other circles continued, albeit lacking the vigor of earlier efforts. Dixie Senators sought to pass an amendment in the Senate during the debate of the Draft Act, expiring 24 June.

Senator Russell (D., Ga.), leader of the Dixie Senators who have won most recent battles against civil right measures, will be pushing for an amendment he termed a “true civil rights move.” At Russell’s urging the Senate Armed Services Committee adopted a provision which would allow all persons who enlist . . . to request to serve with units made up of “his own race.” Officers who failed to carry out this stipulation would be subject to court-martial. (“Armed Forces ‘Equality’ Order Faces Test Battle this Week,” 18 June 1950)

The so-called Russell amendment was defeated 49 to 24 on 21 June. In an ironic twist of fate, Hubert Humphrey, the former Minneapolis mayor (now turned senator) who tangled with the U.S. Army over desegregating the Minnesota National Guard, sought to tack civil rights legislation onto the bill, including the immediate ban of all segregation within the armed forces.

Four days later, on 25 June 1950, the Korean War started, the exigencies of combat making further dissent, however weak, moot. Desegregation was the remedy to personnel shortages. In the words of one white infantryman from the South: “If a man can fire a rifle and knows his job, he’s my buddy. I don’t give a damn what color his skin happens to be” (Anderson, 2004, p. 46).

Summary of Evidence

This chapter has presented evidence chronologically using the abbreviated desegregation timeline (Table 4.1) and the historical evidence/desegregation timeline crosswalk (Table 4.2). Evidence peaked in the period after the issuance of EO 9981. Five

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dissent epochs around desegregation formed the basis for this chapter, revealing a variety of dissent tactics employed by the U.S. Army and other influential groups.

Chapter 5 provides a deeper analysis of how dissent occurs in civil-military relations, analyzing the evidence presented in chapter 4.

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CHAPTER 5:

ANALYSIS OF THEMES

Contextual Features of Conflict

Analysis of the historical dissent findings in chapter 4 used the conceptual framework in Figure 1.1. Conflict influences dissent, a process whereby hierarchies and power play roles within the context of civil-military relations.

Conflict is a social construct. Conflict occurs in hierarchies of an organization

(Coser, 1957). It is the communicative social interaction between individuals or groups as they struggle for resources. Resources include discourse, power, and authority (Van Dijk,

1993). In the study’s historical analysis of desegregation from September 1945 to June

1950, conflict occurred between groups in civil-military relations over Negroes’ role in national defense. “The Negroes’ Historical and Contemporary Role in National Defense”

(26 November 1940) formed the basis for U.S. Army World War II segregationist policies, leading to conflict. If one conflict cuts through a group (as in groups in civil- military relations), dividing the members into two separate camps, as often occurs in groups that form a society, “the single cleavage will put into question the basic agreement,” endangering the continued existence of the civil-military group (Coser,

1956, p. 76). Social conflict occurs because groups in a society are divided into two hostile factions because they are no longer in harmony. As noted in chapter 4, the U.S.

Army seemingly abdicated responsibility for racial equality in the 1940 report, blaming

Negroes for their own “state of affairs” as well as casting Negros as incapable of remembering their “fine heritage” and “historical background.” In other words, the U.S.

Army severed itself from the Negro group, and those groups that would champion the

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Negro cause for equality in the armed forces, thereby severing the harmonious relationship with other groups in the civil-military relationship.

In the analysis of social conflict, this study gives attention to the social, communicative actions between groups in conflict (i.e., the military group, the political group, the social group). Conflict is the purposeful interaction among two or more parties in a competitive setting (Oberschall, 1978). The U.S. Army in 1940 began to express the idea that it was responsible for its own decision-making regarding the composition of the military. The U. S. Army felt that it alone should decide who to enlist into its ranks.

According to the U.S. Army, not only was the Negro incapable of understanding his place in society, he alone was responsible for his quest for equality. Negro problems were

Negro problems, not the U.S. Army’s. The U.S. Army got to decide who enlisted, leaving the political and social groups out of the decision-making process, and the “force of traditional [Army] values . . . favored the continuing exclusion of blacks” in the U.S.

Army (Mershon & Schlossman, 1998, p. 25).

Conflict involves competition between groups, the struggle over values and claims to scarce resources, power, and authority, the purposeful interaction among two or more parties in a competitive setting; within dissent typologies, one group’s view runs contrary to the views of the other, higher group. While the 1940 conference hinted at the incompatibility of Negro goals (equality) with those of the U.S. Army (maintaining segregation), statements made by U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall clarified the U.S. Army’s goals. On 8 December 1941, Marshall and his staff stated that the U.S. Army was “not a sociological laboratory.” To desegregate meant to degrade military readiness (Mershon & Schlossman, 1998). A degradation of military efficiency

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would result in defeat in war. As the ultimate goal of the U.S. Army was to win the nation’s wars on land (Huntington, 1957), the U.S. Army characterized social change in the form of desegregation as counter to its goal. Conflict theory holds that the consciousness of representing a supraindividual claim—fighting not for their group but for a cause—can radicalize a conflict (Coser, 1957; Wagner-Pacifici & Hall, 2012). This collective aim makes the conflict more intense, leading to further expressions of dissent while forcing a “crisis that moves along a major dichotomous cleavage to the relevant group” (Wagner-Pacifici & Hall, 2012, p. 187).

Subsequent statements made by the U.S. Army in 1944 exacerbated the conflict within civil-military contexts. On 1 January 1944, the “Digest of the War Department

Pertaining to Negro Personnel” declared War Department policy to cap the quantity of

Negro personnel in the U.S. Army at a level directly proportional to the Negro population, a roughly 10:1 white-to-Negro ratio. However, within civil-military relations, the political class determines the needs and allocations of the military (Huntington, 1957;

Schiff, 1995), the budgets, materials, size, and structure of the U.S. Army. The military may make its needs known, but political elites ultimately decide U.S. Army composition.

For example, during the Truman period, the political group enacted and enforced coercive recruitment (conscription or draft) in accordance with federal law (Selective

Service Act of 1948), placing demands upon the citizenry, the social group. Therefore, the military decision to impose a quota restriction widened the conflict between political and military groups because establishing a quota was the purview of the political group.

In accordance with conflict theory (Coser, 1956), a revised outside threat to the group (as in desegregation to the U.S. Army) results in heightened internal cohesion, a “rally-

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around-the-flagpole” effect, which in turn leads to more conflict (Benard, 2012; Coser,

1956).

In sum, the history of the U.S. Army was a segregated one for Negroes. In World

War I, local draft boards required Negroes to tear off one corner of their draft application so they could be singled out; other minorities faced no such proviso. In the early 1940s, there was no such requirement for what was called “selective service”79 but Negroes were still rejected because the U.S. Army thought they had inferior aptitude. Negro soldiers fought with distinction in World War I and they wanted to do so again in World War II

(Mershon & Schlossman, 1998). With the political and military groups in conflict, conflict also affected the social group. Members of the social group began to dissent with the U.S. Army segregationist policies, joining the dissent of the political class over U.S.

Army segregation. All three groups dissented across state and private levels across the broad spectrum of fields of action.

We turn now to hierarchical and power issues in civil-military relations and their impact on dissent. Groups react violently to “every form of dissent as an attack upon the group’s existence” (Coser, 1956, p. 101). The next section addresses in what context dissent was displayed in hierarchy and power areas.

Power-Hierarchy Analytical Indicators

Power is access to and control over resources, including the public discourse; it is the ability to control behavior through formal authority or informal influence (Coser,

79 Selective service was a term from President Woodrow Wilson, who in leading the United States to war in 1917 had to expand the military exponentially in a short period. Wilson remained politically cognizant of the negative connotations of a “draft,” as the last large draft occurred during the Civil War, the human cost still in the social psyche in 1917. “Selective service” implied only the best could be accepted. The military through local draft boards would take a deliberative process in selection. The term, still in use today, was resurrected in 1940. 194

1957; Huntington, 1957; van Dijk, 2008). In the analysis of power-dissent, Lamb’s

(2013) historical-analytical grouping method was included in the conceptual framework to capture the manifestation of power and hierarchy in dissent typologies ranging from upward dissent to displaced (outward) dissent. According to Lamb (2013), power is present everywhere and to analyze it is to examine multiple societal hierarchical levels.

These levels range from state (open, overt) to private levels of communication and their commensurate fields of action, as depicted in Figure 5.1. Many of the fields of action occur simultaneously. In other words, dissent may be manifested in the state and private level, from a law-making procedure to a meeting with a politician, at the same time.

Societal level

Field of Action

Genre

Discourse

Topic— Figure 5.1. Historical discourse power-hierarchy analysis (Lamb, 2013, p. 338).

Desegregation

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This study’s research question—How does dissent occur within civil-military relations?—called for analysis of each civil-military group’s voice to the other. Who listened to whom is just as important to the research question as what was actually said in the dissent. The following analysis involved mapping the political, military, and social group field of action via genre. In many cases, grouping was also used. To Lamb (2013), genres and fields of action represent the ends, ways, and means by which groups get their voices heard. Genres are the type or method of communication in a field of action, as noted in Figure 5.1. Field of action means the context of the dissent communication and helps answer the question of how dissent occurs. Fields of action range from state to private societal levels and from law-making procedures to personal relations. For example, Lamb’s (2013) analysis examines which genres a group is able to use and what is said related to groups’ contexts in time periods.

State Level of Analysis

State-level analysis encompasses four fields of action, as depicted on the extreme left of Figure 5.1. State-level historical discourse involves the enactment of political power in decision-making, manipulation of public opinion, and use of mass media. Each field of action is reviewed first by identifying the procedures observed, then by reviewing how hierarchy, power, and dissent were expressed in each field of action’s genres.

Field of Action 1: Law-Making Procedures

As described in chapter 4, both the U.S. Army and the political class used law- making procedures regarding desegregation. Lamb (2013) defined law-making broadly, including the genres of lobbying, regulations, and other manifestations of a field of action

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designed to force compliance. The genre includes presidential executive order (EO), the manifestation of constitutional and statutory power as described in chapter 1. Applying

Lamb’s (2013) analytical method to the law-making procedure field of action regarding the desegregation of the U.S. Army revealed several genres (Table 5.1).

Table 5.1 Field of Action 1: Law-Making Procedure Analysis Political/military/social Date Genre group identification 1 Jan 44 Digest of War Department Policy Pertaining to Negro Military Military Personnel 26 Jul 48 EO 9981 Political 27 Mar 50 Army field order to commanders Military 19 Jun 50 Russell Amendment + press reports Political

On 1 January 1944, the War Department issued the 10:1 policy for the U.S. Army.

This binding regulation fell into the law-making procedure field of action.

Presidential EOs and their constitutional authorities were discussed in chapter 1.

The president, on 26 July 1948, issued a new policy in EO 9981. EO 9981 declared equality of treatment and equal opportunity for all persons in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin. Lamb (2013) noted that fields of action and their genres occur simultaneously across multiple genres. As will be seen, many other fields of action and genres contributed to EO 9981. EO 9981 also established the

President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services

(the Fahy Committee). The committee’s purpose was to implement the government’s policy of equality of treatment and opportunity for all members of the armed forces.

The final U.S. Army manifestation of law-making procedure field of action occurred on 27 March 1950. The U.S. Army issued an order to its field commanders,

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effective within the month of April, opening all enlistments to qualified applicants without regard to race or color. Significant because it represented the end of U.S. Army dissent over efforts by the political and social classes to make it accept desegregation, the regulation ordered the top commanders in the U.S. Army to enforce the policy. Many had resisted desegregation. Nonetheless, dissent would continue in the political group. On 19

June 1950, Georgia Senator Russell sought to pass an amendment to the Draft Act. The amendment proposed to allow soldiers the choice to serve in units of their own race.

Forty-nine senators did not agree with Russell and dissented with the proposal, defeating the amendment and with it the last law-making procedure regarding power-hierarchy indicators in dissent-desegregation.

Power/hierarchy. President Truman worked through the Fahy Committee to desegregate the U.S. Army. The president, at the top of the hierarchy as commander-in- chief of the armed forces, is absolute. Truman’s direct action, seldom occurring in the historical context of desegregation of the U.S. Army, was the lone instance of the most powerful act of the political group in this field of action. This macro-level manifestation of power was unprecedented, as Truman preferred to work through subordinates (Haynes,

1999; McCullough, 1992; Mershon & Schlossman, 1998); the desegregation issue festered from 1945 to 1948 until he acted. The issue appeared to exceed his tolerance for political risk; he spoke out within the law-making procedure context.

Dissent summary. Only four instances of dissent occurred in the law-making procedure field of action. The dissent over desegregation of the U.S. Army began, reached a high point in intensity, and officially ended in this field of action. Dissenters first recognized the incongruence between the actual and desired state of affairs. As

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reflected in the following fields of action, the promulgation of the U.S. Army policy as regulation and law-making procedure in turn affected the social group, who then dissented over U.S. Army segregationist policies. In addition, actions of the political group in EO 9981 likewise had a reaction, resulting in occurrences of U.S. Army dissent over desegregation increasing as noted in chapter 4, Table 4.2. Finally, the events in 1950 marked the official end of U.S. Army dissent and the final effort of the members of the political class sympathetic to a segregated Army to act on the incongruence between the actual and desired state of desegregation in the U.S. Army.

Field of Action 2: Political Executive/Administration

Political executive/administration is slightly less binding than law-making procedure. Presidential decisions, inaugural speeches, and executive branch answers to legislative branch queries represent the manifestation of power in this field of action.

Also included in the genre is legal action. Legal action is similar to Field of Action 1:

Law-making procedures. However, Lamb (2013) recognized the unique, deliberative nature of judicial branch decisions, so they are covered as a political decision in Field of

Action 2, working simultaneously and complementary to law-making procedures in Field of Action 1. From genre to field of action, this bottom-up movement, coupled with other political administration genre manifestations, occurred from September 1945 through

June 1950 as noted in Table 5.2.

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Table 5.2 Field of Action 2: Political Executive/Administration Procedure Analysis Political/military/social Date Genre group identification 19 Feb 47 Bailey (CT state legislator) to Niles—CT Political (state-level) group vs. Governor McConaughy commences legal U.S. Army—decides on legal action vs Army segregation policy, 43d action National Guard Division 7 Feb 48 Royall (SecArmy) to NJ Governor Driscoll, Military vs. political (state level) regarding segregation in NJ National Guard; federal authority trumps state constitution 26 Apr 48 Humphrey (mayor of Minneapolis) to Political (municipal level) vs. Royall; MN Governor Youngdahl to issue military EO 20 May 48 Royall to Youngdahl (MN governor)—Cites Military vs. political (state level) Army regulations, states NJ was an exception, refers matter to National Guard Policy Bureau Note. CT indicates Connecticut; MN, Minnesota; NJ, New Jersey; SecArmy, secretary of the army.

Power. The contextual features of the political administration field of action pit states’ power against federal power. State executives (governors) took legal action over

U.S. Army policies and regulations. Political and military groups are perpetually in conflict and struggle for power (Bland, 1999). As the state executives commenced legal action, seeking a legal decision and justification for dissent over desegregation, they also sought to shape and control the public discourse (van Dijk, 2008). As noted earlier, fields of action operate simultaneously. The political administration field of action has linkages to Field of Action 4: Media/formation of public opinion in the state level, and Field of

Action 6: Formation of working relationships.

For example, on 26 April 1948, Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey publicly rejected the U.S. Army proposal to withhold federal funding if Minnesota Governor

Youngdahl issued an EO to desegregate the Minnesota National Guard. Declaring that

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Minnesotans stand against hypocrisy and support human rights, the political leaders of

Minnesota used multiple fields of action and commensurate genres simultaneously. This would not be the last instance of multiple simultaneous field of action use to limit U.S.

Army dissent over desegregation.

Hierarchy. Political in-group hierarchies were prevalent in Field of Action 2:

Political executive administration. Table 5.2 reveals a myriad of political actors, from the mayor of Minneapolis to governors and state legislators. Dissent moves from the top echelons of the political hierarchy in Field of Action 1 to encompass the entire hierarchy of the political class in Field of Action 2. Table 4.1 reveals that EO 9981 occurred after the entire political group hierarchy acted in political administration contexts.

Dissent summary. Dissent is a sequential process, beginning with recognition that an incongruent state exists, which occurs when feeling apart from an organization, and then speaking out (Kassing, 2012). Dissent in this field of action involved multiple hierarchies within groups in speaking out to force the U.S. Army to comply with desegregation, if only in state National Guard units. All levels (except the top of the hierarchy) of the political group coalesced around a common theme in this political administration context as the Secretary of the Army (SecArmy) tried to refer the desegregation question issue to another department office (the National Guard Bureau) in a bureaucratic maneuver to stifle dissent, or at least sweep it under the carpet. This would not end dissent, however. In effect, this maneuver led to dissent in political control contexts.

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Field of Action 3: Political Control

Political control as a field of action occurs as genres through the formal declaration of the group’s opposition in speeches, petitions for referendum, congressional inquiry, debate, and speeches. While political control as a field of action has become an area of interest for historians, political scientists, and researchers, it carries with it an added difficulty in that analysis must grapple with political and social contexts while trying to make an ideological connection. Lamb (2013) noted that a good analysis does not need to cover every field of action, nor every event in that field of action. Due to the difficulty of putting this field of action in context, she omitted it in her study.

Nonetheless, many researchers have used this field of action in their analytical work, and in many cases, used only the political control field of action in their historical or political science work. Goffman (1981), Crystal (1995), and Ilie (2010) investigated perspectives using only the political control field, mainly in European contexts. Due to the relative value of these works and this field of action within the period of September 1945 to June

1950 in dissent over desegregation, I have included a brief analysis of this field of action.

The genres are depicted below in Table 5.3.

Table 5.3 Field of Action 3: Political Control Procedure Analysis Political/military/social Date Genre group identification 13 Jan 49 Fahy Committee first hearings Political holds hearing, U.S. Army dissents 13 Jan 49 Truman supports Fahy Committee—”I want this job Political (presidential level) done and I want to get it done in a way so everybody will be happy to cooperate to get it done. Unless it is necessary to knock somebody’s ears down.” 28 Mar 49 General Bradley to Fahy Committee Military to political 19 Jun 50 Russell Amendment Political

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Power/hierarchy. The U.S. Army formally registered dissent over desegregation to the first Fahy Committee hearing on 13 January 1949, dissenting at first over the committee’s power. Army Chief of Staff General Omar Bradley then used direct factual appeal in his desegregation dissent, saying voluntary enlistments would decrease and morale would suffer should the U.S. Army desegregate. He stated that desegregation

“might very seriously affect voluntary enlistments, both Negro and white. It might cause great dissatisfaction among Negroes.” He also pointed to social problems that would result: “The big problems arise after work or training hours, in living quarters and social gatherings.”

Truman’s remarks fell into two fields of action: political control (3) and formation of working relationships (6). By stating he wanted “the job done and I want it done in a way so everybody will be happy to get it done . . . unless it is necessary to knock somebody’s ears down,” the president was stating that he supported the power of the current system, which in his view gave credence to the authority vested in the presidency and, by proxy, the Fahy Committee. His confrontational tone exhibited power, a conflictive of communication meant to silence opposition as a display of referent power

(Raven & French, 1958; Yukl, 2013; Saas & Hall, 2016).

The Russell Amendment of 19 June 1950 represented a last-ditch effort of the political class to act as agent for the military in dissent against desegregation. Defeated

49 to 24, the Dixie senators did not have the power to pass the measure. We cannot know for certain if the Dixiecrats knew their cause was lost,80 but their inability to reconcile

80 Lamb (2013) alluded to the analytical conundrum of the political control field of action: the researcher often must speculate in these historical contexts. 203

suggests a desire to protract the conflict.81 Protracted conflict runs the danger of becoming lone dissent, an outlier (Granberg & Bartels, 2005). It is difficult to analyze the influence of speeches, petitions, and opposition because when the cause appears lost, many other contextual features come into play. Dissenters may be wrong or naïve or they may act with histrionic-political reasons in mind.82

Dissent summary. The Dixiecrats’ petition represented a break from the

Democratic Party. A formal political group with distinctive norms has greater power over a group or subgroup with no structure. However, there is still pressure to conform due to social power influences, but this process is difficult to analyze, as most research focuses on the outcome of the dissent, not the process (Granberg & Bartels, 2005; Kassing,

2009a). Nonetheless, manifestation of dissent points to lack of hierarchy and power as a unifying force in the Democratic Senate of 1950. In a horizontal structure such as a congress or parliament, acts of individualism tend to get drowned out by the conformist collective, revealing constraining relationships between hierarchy and power, as noted by

Landier et al. (2009).

Established within Field of Action 1: Law-making procedure contexts, but within power contexts, legitimate power created the Fahy Committee. As noted in chapter 4, the

Fahy Committee often used expert power to try and prove the U.S. Army’s position wrong. Within dissent typologies, the president’s creation of the Fahy Committee

81 See Wagner-Pacifici and Hall (2012) for protracted conflict in civil-military relations. 82 Such instances occurring under the political control field of action occurred when the House of Representatives voted 421 to 1 to authorize President Bush to use all necessary force in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks, with Congresswoman Lee as the lone dissenter (over the language of the bill). Not without precedent, Congresswoman Blanken was the lone dissenter against the U.S. declaration of war against Japan after the 7 December 1941 attack (Granberg & Bartels, 2005). 204

represented a control mechanism to monitor dissent. Kassing (1998) noted that large administrative organizations often create more hierarchical offices and control mechanisms to monitor dissent.

Field of Action 4: Media/Formation of Public Opinion

Lamb (2013) conceived the media field of action as a struggle for the formation of public opinion. The genre includes press releases, conferences, interviews, speeches, books, newspaper articles, protest marches, and photographs. This is a broad field of action because, as Lamb (2013) noted, all of the groups in a society interact in these genres to get their voices heard; left unclear is why this field of action is under state levels. As noted in chapter 2, some research exists placing media under state control within civil-military relations, especially in European contexts (Millman, 2005; Saas &

Hall, 2016). However, this research discussed civil-military relations during a time of war. Lamb (2013) noted this method was subject to some interpretation of the researcher.

It was not clear that in a time of peace, such as September 1945 to June 1950, media should be placed under the state level. I therefore placed media/formation of public opinion into a hybrid state/private transitional space.83

Table 5.4 reveals manifestations of the media field of action from September

1945 to June 1950. Due to the massive amount of media material, it is not necessary to examine every piece of evidence within the field. Rather, the task is to identify references and tables to lay out the group’s representation clearly, thereby enabling analysis (Lamb,

2013, p. 339). Applying the annotated evidence table to Lamb’s group identity method

83 D. Schwandt, personal conversation, 30 May 2017. 205

revealed 20 media/formation of public opinion manifestations, a number exceeding that of Fields of Action 1 to 3 combined.

Table 5.4 Field of Action 4: Media/Formation of Public Opinion Analysis Political/military/social group Date Genre identification (principal agent) 26 Nov 40 “The Negroes’ Historical and Contemporary Military >>> Social Role in National Defense,” Hampton Conference 8 Dec 41 General Marshall remarks to conference Military >>> Social 26 Apr 48 Humphrey (mayor of Minneapolis) to Royall Political >>> Military >>> Social threat 20 May 48 Royall to Youngdahl (Minnesota governor) Military >>> Political >> Social threat 14 Jul 48 Democratic National Convention, Negro Social >>> Social press/A. Phillip Randolph dissent 28 Apr 49 “The Negro in the Army”—U.S. Army report Military >>> Military prepared by Royall’s office 11 May 49 Press release Military >>> Social 24 May 49 Initial Recommendations Report of Fahy Political >>> Social/Military Committee 7 Jun 49 Press release Military >>> Political/Social 6 Jul 49 Fahy Interim Report blasts Army Political >>> Social >>> Military

15 Jul 49 Arkansas State Press article Social >>> Military 30 Sep 49 SecDef makes announcement, press release Military >>> Social >>> Political 3 Oct 49 Negro press Social >>> Social 6 Oct 49 Truman press conference Political >>> Social >>> Military 3 Nov 49 Washington Post article Social >>> Social 17, 25 SecArmy to Fahy, Utilization of Negro Military >>>Political/Social Nov 49 Manpower in Army—New Army plan 21 Jan 50 Press reaction Social >>> Social 27 Feb 50 Eric Sevareid report Social >>> Social >>> Military 22 May 50 Fahy press release, Truman press release, Political >>> Social Freedom to Serve report delivered to Truman, press reaction (23 May) Note: SecArmy indicates Secretary of the Army; SecDef, Secretary of Defense.

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This grouping method is a useful technique when looking at the access, power, and influence of all speakers in society, not just those at the top of the hierarchy (Lamb,

2013, p. 343).

Power/hierarchy. Attempts to influence public opinion move throughout the groups (political, military, and social). Of the many instances of media/formation of public opinion within and between the political, military, and society groups, 14 involved the social group, with further frequency of analysis as follows (principal and agent):

• Military >>> Social (4)

• Political >>> Social (4)

• Social >>> Social (5)

• Social >>> Military (1)

The military used media to shape public opinion in four instances, the political group attempted to shape public opinion four times, the social group used media laterally to influence society five times, and the social group used media to influence the military once.

Within-group or group-to-group dissent occurs when opportunities to shape dissent with those at the top of the hierarchy are blocked. Lateral dissent occurs more frequently when the groups feel apart from an organization or its culture. Feedback loops are closed. There is no evidence that the U.S. Army solicited input from Negro groups in a feedback loop to improve the communicative process within the U.S. Army.84

84 Modern civil-military relations employs interagency working groups and collaborative efforts to find solutions to strategic problems. One example is formal interagency committee meetings headed by the National Security Council. A more operational example is State and Defense 207

Researchers recognize the coercive manifestations of power (Raven & French,

1958; Yukl, 2013). Hubert Humphrey, mayor of Minneapolis, and SecArmy Robert

Royall each threatened to go to the media in April/May 1948. In coercive power, the target person complies in order to avoid punishments believed to be controlled by the agent. Threats are often used (Raven & French, 1958; Yukl, 2013). In November 1949,

Charles Fahy threatened to go to the press over the U.S. Army’s plan, “Utilization of

Negro Manpower in the Army,” because the plan did not meet the intent of EO 9981. As the political-military groups drifted apart, dissent threatened to involve the out-group— society. Such positioning on the outside of this typology points to the power of the social group in the media/formation of public opinion field of action. The social group’s external location within civil-military relations in this context acted as an enabling agent for the dissenting group as the political and military groups fought over control of the public discourse. The enabling feature of this relationship was apparent in group voice regarding societal power. That A. Philip Randolph was an “influential Negro” along with the groups he represented (as voiced by the president’s staff in December 1947) shows the enabling context of the social class.

Within-group manifestations of media, such as “The Negro in the Army” report written by and for the U.S. Army (28 April 1949), the Gillem Board (November 1945), and other lateral dissent within groups, suggested lack of power to form public opinion.

The U.S. Army was not winning the battle for the hearts and minds of society. In accordance with dissent theory, the media plays a prominent role in dissent due to its influence in changing society’s mind. The U.S. Army did not meet its objective.

Department collaboration in Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan (personal experiences). 208

Dissent summary. Intellectuals who speak out via the media systematize the movement’s ideology and give it collective orientation, deepening the conflict within groups in opposition (Coser, 1956, p. 117). Attempting to influence public opinion through strategic communications is at play in superior-subordinate relationships and even more so for dissenters (Kassing, 2009a, p. 417). Access to public discourse figures prominently in power typologies (van Dijk, 2008).

Within the media context, all groups expressed dissent. In addition, the media context revealed all dissent typologies: upward, lateral, and displaced (outward). Figure

5.4 reveals repetition. Repetition is a means of expressing dissent over time, especially within superior-subordinate relationships (Kassing, 2009b).

Private Level of Analysis

Field of Action 5: Party-Internal Development of Informed Opinion

Within this field of action, genres such as declarations, statements, and conferences within the group can direct group action much like a slogan unites a company around a purpose. For example, the U.S. Army’s “Be All You Can Be,” Ford’s

“Quality is Job One,” and the U.S. Navy’s “A Global Force for Good” are recent examples where external and internal groups receive inspiration from a declaration or statement. Therefore, within this field of action, members of large groups might require persuasion or manipulation to preserve group homogeneity and power (Yukl, 2013). Such power is institutionalized; some members have dominant places in the hierarchy of power to shape the discourse (Kassing & Anderson, 2014, p. 183; van Dijk, 2008).

From September 1945 to June 1950, political, military, and social groups displayed the following genres, as noted in Table 5.5.

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Table 5.5 Field of Action 5: Party-Internal Development of Informed Opinion Analysis Political/military/social Date Genre group identification 17 Nov 45 Gillem Board Report (draft) Military Dec 46 “Report on the Negro Soldier,” Infantry Journal, Major Military Cocklin 14 Jul 48 Democratic National Convention, Negro press/A. Phillip Social Randolph dissent 28 Apr 49 “The Negro in the Army”—U.S. Army report prepared by Military Royall’s office Apr—Army closes enlistments 12 May Internal Fahy memo for Committee Political 49 Fahy recommends U.S. Army abolish 10% requirement 30 May E. W. Kenworthy, executive secretary of Fahy Committee, Political 49 writes committee Aug-Sep Inter-committee correspondence Political Aug 8 Kenworthy to Fahy 26 Sep 49 Memo for president (three events) 29 Oct 49 Kenworthy memo to committee Political

Power/hierarchy. Occasionally the powerless speak to institutional representatives (van Dijk, 2008). In these cases, dissent is a passive, reactive, informational discourse exchange (Lamb, 2013; van Dijk, 2008, p. 31). In the wake of

General Marshall’s declaration that the U.S. Army was not a sociological laboratory

(Field of Action 4: Formation of public opinion), the U.S. Army issued the Gillem Board report (November 1945), a “Report on the Negro Soldier” (December 1946), and the

“Negro in the Army” (28 April 1949), all internal efforts to develop an informed opinion over the merits of segregation. Within this field of action, the U.S. Army did not dissent externally to either the political or social group. Rather, these internal reports for the U.S.

Army audience contributed to bolstering power within the organization and reinforcing segregation as a policy. Affirmation of segregation as a policy meant the antithesis was

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also true: repudiation or dissent of the de-segregation. Thus, senior U.S. Army officers in fact strengthened their position within the Department of the Army through such internal reports and declarations.

To refute such growing power, the political group in manifestations of the internal development of informed opinions used direct factual appeal to refute U.S. Army dissent over desegregation. Internal Fahy Committee memos used facts to shoot holes in the U.S.

Army’s contention that segregation meant maximum military readiness and the best use of resources. E. W. Kenworthy wrote that the readiness argument was dubious and

“dangerous doctrine” because Negro officers have proven leadership capabilities. As noted in chapter 4, Kenworthy also factually refuted U.S. Army arguments that segregation preserved good social order and administration.

Field of Action 4: Media/formation of public opinion points to lateral dissent as a way to vent frustration. In Field of Action 5: Party-internal development of informed opinion, the genre points to use of facts as an internal power enabler in lateral and displaced (outward) dissent typologies. Hierarchy develops as an instrument of control

(Scott & Davis, 2007). Used to shore up participation towards a goal, those high in the hierarchy use employee control measures to lead, motivate, and develop informed opinions, creating a group value system.

Dissent summary. In Field of Action 5: Party-internal development of informed opinion, the genres suggest that facts are used as internal power enablers in lateral and displaced (outward) dissent typologies. As the U.S. Army and the Fahy Committee issued internal reports in an effort to develop group opinion contexts, the group coalesced and insulated itself. The social group played a small role in this context as the fields of action

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moved toward private levels. Political and military groups worked toward their view of the desired state of affairs. Developing goals is a similar topic. The next section discusses private fields of action, the formation of working relationships, and common goals.

Field of Action 6: Formation of Working Relationships, Common Goals

Formation of working relationships means working towards a common goal through the genre of open or closed meetings with the political group, meetings with other organizations, letters to/from politicians, and phone calls or letters with a political group (Lamb, 2013), as depicted in Figure 5.1.

The political culture of September 1945 to June 1950, in which working relationships were formed with politicians, suggests a relationship with the preservation or desire to change the status quo. The less actors are interested in maintaining the status quo, the more they want change, reflecting an increased propensity to dissent

(Hirschman, 1970; Kassing, 1998, 2009b; Kassing & Anderson, 2014; Kassing &

Armstrong, 2002). Elements seeking to maintain the status quo might be viewed as old- fashioned or archaic (Lamb, 2013; Wodak & Ebrary, 2009, p. 98).

Table 5.6 shows the genres that occurred in the formation of working relationships, common goals field of action from September 1945 to June 1950.

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Table 5.6 Field of Action 6: Formation of Working Relationships, Common Goals Analysis Political/military/social group Date Genres identification (principal/agent) 22 Jul 46 Negro groups send telegram to Truman Social >>> Political 26 Jul 46 Nash (special assistant to president) sends letter to Social >>> Political Niles (presidential adviser) regarding telegram Political >>> Military from veterans and War Department policy Political >>> Political (also Field of Action 5) 7 Mar 47 Senator McMahon (CT) to WarSec and cover letter Political (Senator) >>> Military >>> Military (Field of Action 5) 10 Jun 47 Dr. Carr, executive secretary of the President’s Political >>> Military Committee on Civil Rights 13 Dec 47 Randolph to Truman, wants meeting on Jim Crow Social >>> Political in military, but Truman says no 26 Apr 48 Humphrey (mayor of Minneapolis) to Royall Political (Municipal) >>> Military (also in Field of Action 2, 4) 20 May Royall to Youngdahl (Governor, MN) Military >>> Political (also Field 48 of Action 2, 4) 10 Aug 48 C. Clifford (special counsel to president) to Royall, Political >>> Military SecArmy 2 Sep 48 Clifford to Royall (again) Political >>> Military 17 Sep 48 Royall responds directly to Truman Military >>> Political 2 Dec 48 Royall to new SecDef Louis Johnson Military >>> Military/Political 13 Jan 49 Truman supports Fahy Committee Political (President) >>> Political (Committee) 29 Mar 49 Royall to White House/Royall’s statement to Fahy Military >>> Political on 28 Mar 49

26 May Gray to Johnson (SecDef) + Fahy Committee Military >>> Military/Political 49 analysis on 30 May

24 Jun 49 Chicago resident letter to Truman and SecDef Social >>> Political

25, 27 Jul Fahy to SecArmy Gray/to Truman Political >>> Military 49 6, 11 Oct Fahy to Truman correspondence (2) Political (Committee) >>> 49 Political (President) 17, 25 SecArmy to Fahy, Utilization of Negro Manpower Military >>> Political Nov 49 in Army 3, 13 Dec NY Senator Ives writes Truman/Truman reply Political (Congress) >>> Political 49 (President) 16 Jan 50 Fahy to Truman Political (Committee) >>> Political (President) 7 Feb 50 Fahy to Truman Political (Committee) >>>>> Political (President) Note: CT indicates Connecticut; MN, Minnesota; NY, New York; SecArmy, Secretary of the Army; SecDef, Secretary of Defense.

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As shown in Table 5.6, there were manifestations of the field of action between and within the three civil-military relations groups: military, political, and social. There were four instances of social group letters to the political class, six interactions between military and political, six interactions between political and military, and six instances of within-group letters, correspondence, and meetings, as summarized below:

• Social >>> Political (4)

• Military >>> Political (6)

• Political >>> Military (6)

• Group >>> Group (6) (lateral)

Power/hierarchy. Of the six manifestations of formation of working relationships, common goals occurring within the same group, all but one occurred within the political group. For example, the president met with his staff supporting the Fahy

Committee on 13 January 1949. Subsequently, Charles Fahy corresponded with the president on 6 and 11 October 1949, 16 January 1950, and 7 February 1950. In addition, other members of the political class from the congressional level corresponded with

President Truman, such as New York Senator Iles (3 December 1949), with Truman replying 10 days later.

Within-group genres reveal much more than formation of informed opinion as discussed in Field of Action 5. Rather, genres in Field of Action 6: Formation of working relationships, common goals are a means to explain the outcome of social interactions within a group hierarchy in dissent events (Lamb, 2013). The in-group hierarchy is a contextual feature of dissent and civil-military relations (Snider, 2017), with Table 5.6 suggesting that subgroups of the political class can rally around the common goal.

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Senator Iles wrote the president not to dissent over the president’s policy of desegregating the military, but to urge the president to use his power to overcome U.S.

Army intransigence. Likewise, Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey did not dissent with Minnesota Governor Youngdahl’s position on desegregating the Minnesota National

Guard. Rather, Humphrey vocalized his support of Youngdahl’s power to issue an executive order to an out-group, the U.S. Army.

Within-group genres across the group hierarchy in this analysis occurred on the front lines of dissent desegregation events, suggesting a high actor influence that progressed beyond opinion forming. Letters from the political group to the SecArmy on

10 August 1948, 2 September 1948, 17 September 1948, and 25 July 1949 tried to convince the U.S. Army that desegregation promoted readiness while representing the best use of resources.

Letters from administration staff revealed that on rare occasions, the political group reminded the U.S. Army that the president was ultimately their boss, with the power, at the top of the hierarchy. For example, as noted in Clark Clifford’s letters to

Kenneth Royall, “It appears to us that no benefit results from referring to any decision or recommendation of the Committee on National Guard and Reserve Policy. . . . It would appear to us inadvisable to refer to a recommendation of some previous committee.” As noted in chapter 4, Royall attempted to refer the dissent over National Guard segregation to other defense committees. Clifford, however, used the word “us” twice—”us” as meaning the White House. Clifford may have purposefully refused to legitimatize any committee other than Fahy by failing to capitalize “previous committee” in his letter

(italics mine).

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Dissent summary. In the wake of the political to military genres, the military group responded to the political group. The SecArmy in a 17 September 1948 letter to

Truman did not dissent with the president’s power or the spirit of Clifford’s letter, but tried a new dissent tactic: dissent over composition of the Fahy Committee.

Subsequently, in November 1949, SecArmy Gray issued a new policy: “Grouping of

Negro units with white units is accepted Army policy.” Gray also decided not to respond directly to Fahy in the fall of 1949, something that is noted in Fields of Action 4 and 5. In

Field of Action 4: Media/formation of public opinion, the media called the U.S. Army tactics “sabotage” (29 October 1949). In Field of Action 5: Party-internal development of an informed opinion, the Fahy Committee called the U.S. Army “obstructionist” (3

November 1949). While the political group continued to engage in the genre, the military group did not participate in forming a working relationship towards a common goal.

Chapter 4 revealed that the U.S. Army employed delaying tactics as dissent in failing to respond to letters. Bessner and Lorber (2012), civil-military researchers, described shirking is a dissent tactic used by those at the top of the hierarchy.

Field of Action 7: Formation of Personal Relationships

There were no occurrences of formation of personal relationships in this analysis.

While private meetings may have occurred, there is no historical evidence of any meeting having an impact on dissent to desegregation.

Summary: Dissent Theory and Civil-Military Relations

The interpretive analysis of the chronology from chapter 4 using Lamb’s (2013) historical discourse framework illustrates how dissent occurs within the three groups

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comprising civil-military relations and the context shaping the actions of the participants.

Dissent over desegregation of the U.S. Army from September 1945 to June 1950 occurred across state, private, and state-private hybrid societal levels, revealing the role that power and hierarchy play in the social interaction of dissent.

This analysis of the six fields of action shows the dynamic nature of dissent over desegregation within civil-military relations and the role that hierarchy and power play in a dissent context with positive outcomes. The interpretations and conclusions from this analysis, with implications for theory, practice, and future research, are discussed in chapter 6.

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CHAPTER 6:

INTERPRETATION OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS

This historiographical study was designed to understand how dissent occurs within civil-military relations in positive historical outcomes. The research explored dissent regarding desegregation of the U.S. Army during the Truman administration from

September 1945 to June 1950. To examine the interactions between groups in civil- military relations, it was important to first gain an understanding that three groups comprise military relations: the military group, the political group, and the social group

(Saas & Hall, 2016; Schiff, 1995). Research employed historiographical methods, specifically chronology in chapter 4 as advocated by Greenwood and Bernardi (2014), as a bridge to understand group interaction over dissent.

The historiographical approach and subsequent employment of Lamb’s (2013) historical discourse analysis led to data collection and analysis progressing in sequence.

The abbreviated dissent-desegregation timeline in Table 4.1 and the research evidence to military desegregation timeline crosswalk in Table 4.2 placed the research evidence into a chronology of desegregation of the U.S. military. The approach followed Figure 1.1, exposing the dynamics of hierarchy and power in dissent chronology.

The historical discourse power-hierarchy analysis (Figure 5.1) focused on the manifestation of dissent between state and private levels of fields of action, ranging from laws, media, and private meetings (Lamb, 2013). Drawing on Lamb’s (2013) analysis, research examined incidents of dissent between and within civil-military groups.

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the findings and implications of this study in relationship to dissent in civil-military relations in positive historical outcomes.

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This chapter begins with a summary of the results. It then interprets the findings in terms of conflict, dissent that occurs over time and in different directions, power patterns, simultaneous dissent across levels, and civil-military relations and the social group. After presenting conclusions, the chapter discusses implications for dissent theory, civil- military practice, and future research.

Summary of Findings

The study addressed the research question, “How does dissent occur within civil- military relations in positive historical dissent events?” In answering the research question, other questions emerged requiring exploration as part of this study: What can we understand about the application of dissent theory as either a cause of conflict or a result of it? What are the relationships between hierarchy and power? How is dissent used within civil-military contexts? What groups comprise the civil-military relationship?

What period of time in our nation’s history did dissent in civil-military relations play such a vital role, resulting in a positive outcome? How have historians’ discussions about civil-military dissent changed over time?

The historical discourse analysis (Lamb, 2013) demonstrated five related findings, aligning with the components of the conceptual framework (Figure 1.1). Four findings are presented under the heading of dissent and one in the context of civil-military relations theory.

• In dissent theory:

1. Dissent does not occur solely in response to conflict, nor does conflict result

solely from dissent. Rather, dissent occurs because of conflict just as conflict

results from dissent.

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2. Dissent occurs over time as groups in hierarchies dissent inward and outward.

Dissent theory holds dissent is manifested in upward, lateral, or displaced

(outward) typologies. During dissent over desegregation, civil-military groups

used upward, lateral, and displaced types.

3. Power patterns emerge in dissent. Groups display legitimate power leading to a

reaction and subsequent battle for other types of power. A period of consolidation

then occurs as groups solidify power before a weak, final engagement from the

dissenter marks the terminus of open dissent.

4. Dissent theory characterizes dissent as a sequential, two-step process involving

recognition and speaking out. The present research revealed dissent as a

complicated process occurring in state, public, and private levels simultaneously

across many fields of action.

• In civil-military relations:

5. The social group at first remains an interested bystander as the political and

military groups engage in dissent. As the political and military groups seek power

to bolster their respective positions over the conflict that led to dissent, the social

group becomes embroiled in a pitched battle for power. Dissent reverberates

outward; it affects all components of the civil-military relationship.

The next section interprets the findings. Each finding is interpreted and situated in the literature referred to in chapter 2.

Interpretation of Findings

The findings from this research provide insight into how dissent occurs and the interactions of the three groups in civil-military relations in dissent, exposing the roles

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played by hierarchy and power. This research also contributes to a greater understanding of the role of conflict in dissent and of dissent in civil-military relations.

Conflict

Finding 1: Dissent does not occur solely in response to conflict, nor does conflict

result solely from dissent. Rather, dissent occurs because of conflict just as much

as conflict results from dissent.

Where dissent is expression, conflict is a struggle. Parties vie for control over values and claims to scarce resources, power, and authority (Coser, 1956), with purposeful interaction among two or more parties in a competitive setting (Oberschall,

1978). Organizational theorists are divided over conflict’s role in dissent. The present research found that dissent does not occur solely in response to conflict, nor does conflict result solely from dissent.

Conflict leads to dissent. In state levels of Lamb’s (2013) analysis, actors’ dissent discourse occurs in law-making, political administration, political control, and mass media fields of action. Conflict can promote group unity, embolden the group, and mobilize emotions, leading to dissent expressions in discourse or written form (Coser,

1957; Wagner-Pacifici & Hall, 2012).

On 1 January 1944, the War Department issued the 10:1 policy for the U.S. Army.

For every 10 whites, one Negro could be accepted. The promulgation of the U.S. Army policy as regulation and law-making procedure in turn led to social group dissent over

U.S. Army segregationist policies. In addition, actions of the political group in promulgating Executive Order (EO) 9981 likewise had a conflictive reaction, resulting in increased occurrences of U.S. Army dissent.

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In response to a conflict within the legal and political field of action, on 19

February 1947, Connecticut Governor McConaughy commenced legal action against the

U.S. Army policy of segregating the 43d National Guard Division. Political and military groups are perpetually in conflict (Bland, 1999). Dissent in this case was a result of conflict.

Intellectuals that speak out via the media systematize the movement’s ideology and give it collective orientation, deepening the conflict within groups in opposition, a stimulus for dissent (Coser, 1956). Military and political groups continued to drift apart over the issue of desegregation after World War II. Within Field of Action 4:

Media/formation of public opinion, conflict between the military and political groups led to dissent, especially over the influence of the out-group—society.

In private levels of Lamb’s (2013) historical discourse analysis, groups act internally to shape the internal opinions of group members or work towards a common goal. Within Field of Action 5: Party-internal development of informed opinion, eight occurrences of group-internal dissent statements occurred. Findings indicated that these in-group statements had the tendency to encourage the group to “rally around the flag” in the conflict. For example, internal reports for the U.S. Army audience such as the “Report on the Negro Soldier” in the Infantry Journal contributed to the group’s reinforcement of segregation as a policy and desegregation as anathema to the U.S. Army, thereby continuing the conflict between groups.

Conflict led to dissent in Field of Action 6: Formation of working relationships, common goals. Six occurrences of group dissent occurred over the out-group position on desegregation. For example, in September 1948, the U.S. Army and the Truman

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administration were in conflict over the language of the U.S. Army report, “The Negro in the Army.” As noted in chapter 4, Clark Clifford wrote SecArmy Royall, “We feel here that it is most important that reference be made to EO No. 9981 and we submit the attached suggestion” (C. Clifford, personal correspondence to R. Royall, 2 September

1948). This action subsequently led to Royall’s 17 September 1948 written dissent in a reply directly to the president dissenting with the composition of the Fahy Committee, the body that made the changes referenced by Clifford. Intergroup conflict leads to dissent, creating competition over incompatible goals and exacerbating the conflict situation

(Benard, 2012).

Findings indicated that conflict leads to dissent, supporting the views of Coser

(1956, 1957, 1967), Oberschall (1978), Lipsky and Avgar (2008), Falk (2011), Wagner-

Pacifici and Hall (2012), Buckner et al. (2013), Whelan (2013) and Levy (2014).

Dissent leads to conflict. Findings also indicated that dissent can lead to conflict, or in some cases, more conflict. Kassing and Anderson (2014) held that dissent occurs because the dissenter ends up in a subordinate role where the higher group controls the discourse; controls something the subordinate values, like playing time (as in coach- athlete relationships), resources, pay, or time off; or controls issues that the subordinate cares deeply about. Hierarchies and power are present, and the subordinate group dissents, exacerbating conflict (Kassing & Anderson, 2014). Kassing (1998) suggested that when dissent is expressed to those who cannot affect change within the organization, conflict between the dissenter and the organization results. Millman (2005) indicated that those in the hierarchy view the dissent as seditious.

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Likewise, in civil-military relationships, findings indicated that dissent leads to conflict, particularly when the top of the hierarchy considers the dissent not mutually beneficial or helpful to the issue. In a blend of Lamb’s (2013) state and private levels, on

22 July 1946, Negro groups sent a telegram (formation of working relationship field of action) to the president, dissenting with the Gillem Board report retaining segregation.

The Negro press likewise dissented. As a result, the U.S. Army dug in as if on the defensive: the U.S. Army characterized Negro dissent as “hellfire and brimstone” in its

December 1946 report “The Negro in the Army.” Such language reflects the partisan nature of the group as conflictual, not consensus- and solution-seeking (van Dijk, 2008).

Connecticut Senator McMahon wrote to the War Department on 7 March 1947 supporting Governor McConaughy’s legal action (political executive/administration field of action) and dissenting with the U.S. Army policy. “Please advise me. . . . I am going to release your answer to the press” (B. McMahon, personal correspondence to Patterson,

20 February 1947). Such an exchange deepened the division between the two parties, leading to greater conflict. It also threatened to widen the conflict, and further separate the players in the conflict, by involving the social group.

Dissent leading to conflict was particularly acute in the media/formation of public opinion field of action. As noted in Table 5.4, the Negro press dissented on 15 July 1949 to the U.S. Army, and dissented on 3 October 1949 to its own readers. There is no evidence that interactions of all civil-military relations groups in this field of action involved the use of feedback loops to find common ground between the parties. Conflict escalates where feedback loops are closed, increasing group polarization (Kassing,

2009b). When feedback loops are closed, people remain silent when they would

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otherwise dissent; those in the hierarchy view the silence as healthy when in fact something is festering beneath the surface, the conflict growing (Morrison & Milliken,

2000).

Findings support the research of Gorden and Infante (1980), Kassing (1997, 1998,

2011), Moore (2000), Morrison and Milliken (2000), Milliken et al. (2003), Millman

(2005), Land (2007), Harp et al. (2010), Hollister (2011), Kassing and Kava (2013), and

Young (2015), who held that dissent leads to conflict. The present research proved that dissent leads to conflict and conflict leads to dissent in civil-military relations. This supports the finding that dissent does not occur solely in response to conflict, nor does conflict result solely from dissent. Rather, dissent occurs because of conflict just as much as conflict results from dissent.

Dissent as Occurring Over Time—Upward, Lateral, and Displaced (Outward)

Finding 2: Dissent occurs over time as groups in hierarchies dissent inward and

outward. Dissent theory holds dissent is manifested in upward, lateral, or

displaced (outward) typologies. During dissent over desegregation, civil-military

groups used upward, lateral, and displaced types.

Dissent occurs over time. Dissenters employ dissent as a long-term strategy within a hierarchical relationship (Kassing, 2009b). Kassing and Kava (2013) described how dissent occurs over time, describing dissent as a repetitive process, especially when those at the top of the hierarchy “neglected or waited to address issues, made excuses for failing to address issues, and dismissed and ignored issues” (p. 47).

Present research supported dissent as occurring over time, connected around a single, macro issue in desegregation of the military. A pattern of dissent emerges over

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time when dissenters employ different dissent typologies as contradictory opinions are expressed outward, inward, and upward. Table 4.2 presented the history of dissent throughout the Truman period, noting that the seeds for dissent were sewn even before

President Truman assumed the presidency. The U.S. Army dissented outwardly to the social group in 1940 (Hampton Conference) and 1941 (General Marshall’s remarks), before dissenting inwardly in 1945 (internal Gillem Board) and 1946 (internal dissent in

“Report on the Negro Soldier”). In chapter 5, further analysis of themes through use of

Tables 5.1 to 5.6 demonstrated dissent occurring over a period of years. U.S. Army dissent occurred over time—outward to society, inward to the U.S. Army as a whole, and upward to the political class.

Dissent occurs as upward, lateral, and displaced (outward). There are three types of dissent: upward, lateral, and displaced (outward). The present research noted that dissent occurs in all types.

Evidence in chapter 4 and subsequent analysis in chapter 5 revealed several instances of upward dissent in civil-military relations. In upward dissent, dissent is expressed to management, up the hierarchy, particularly in superior-subordinate relationships (Kassing, 1997, 2009a, 2009b; Kassing & Anderson, 2014). Royall’s correspondence and dissent (already discussed) represented one example of upward dissent. Other occurrences were Royall’s letter to Secretary of Defense (SecDef)

Forrestal on 2 December 1948 proposing a nonsegregated U.S. Army post if the U.S.

Navy and U.S. Air Force would undertake similar measures and the many communications from the Fahy Committee to the president. On 5 December 1949, New

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York Senator Irving Ives wrote the president, dissenting over continued U.S. Army intransigence on enacting EO 9981, a clear case of a dissent expression up the hierarchy.

A characteristic emerging from the U.S. Army’s use of upward dissent was the presentation of a proposed solution. Kassing (2002, 2013) held that in upward dissent, the dissenter presents a solution; the dissent is packaged with a solution to the perceived problem, rather than just voicing a complaint. Likewise, the U.S. Army attempted to provide solutions: Royall’s proposal of having nonsegregated posts (1948), proposing a different composition of the Fahy Committee (1948), tinkering with Army General

Classification Test scores, and drafting the Army’s own “integration” plan with SecDef approval (1949).85

Tables 5.4 to 5.6 showed five instances of lateral dissent in civil-military relations related to media/formation of public opinion; eight related to party-internal development of informed opinion; and six related to formation of working relationships, common goals. In the media, the social group used the press laterally to influence society. In forming a common goal, the political group worked internally in isolation from other groups. For example, the president met with his staff, who reported his support for the

Fahy Committee on 13 January 1949. Subsequently, Charles Fahy corresponded with the president on 6 and 11 October 1949, 16 January 1950, and 7 February 1950. In addition, other members of the political class from the congressional level corresponded with

85 It is beyond the scope of this research to determine if these solutions proposed by the U.S. Army represented a genuine effort to embrace the spirit of EO 9981. As noted earlier, in October and November 1949, members of the administration called the U.S. Army efforts obstructionist to desegregation, and the press likewise characterized U.S. Army initiatives as sabotaging any progress on desegregation. Yukl (2013) noted that resistance in the form of delaying tactics of the rank and file is an influence outcome helpful in evaluating the success of the influence of those at the top of the hierarchy in having their decision carried out. 227

President Truman, such as New York Senator Iles (3 December 1949). The evidence supports the finding that dissent works laterally in civil-military relations.

Dissent displayed outwardly likewise occurred throughout the period. The political and military groups both expressed disagreement or contradictory opinions about the policy of desegregation to those outside of their respective organizations. Displaced

(outward) dissent was particularly prevalent in the media/formation of public opinion field of action (see Table 5.4): nine of the 20 examples in this field of action occurred outwardly, mainly when the political or military group dissented to the social group. (In one instance, the social group dissented to the military.)

This field of action also revealed the threat of the dissenter using displaced dissent. For example, in November 1949, Charles Fahy threatened to go to the press over the U.S. Army’s plan, “Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army,” because the plan did not meet the intent of EO 9981. Displaced dissent was not limited to the media field of action. There were instances of displaced dissent in the formation of working relationship/common goals field of analysis (see Table 5.6), mainly involving the social group’s entry into the desegregation debate. Such examples included Negro groups sending a telegram to Truman on 22 July 1946 and veterans groups sending a telegram to the War Department on 26 July 1946.

Kassing (2013, 2014) focused on upward dissent, but present research suggests that each dissent type plays an important role, coalescing around a single issue. Evidence and analysis support the finding that within civil-military relations, dissent occurs in all three types. Dissent also occurs over time.

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Power Patterns Emergent in Dissent

Finding 3: Power patterns emerge in dissent. Groups display legitimate power

leading to a reaction and subsequent battle for other types of power. A period of

consolidation then occurs as groups solidify power before a weak, final

engagement from the dissenter marks the terminus of open dissent.

Power is access to and control over material resources (Coser, 1957) and symbolic resources such as voice (Van Dijk, 2008). Within civil-military contexts, power controls behavior as either formal authority or informal influence (Huntington, 1957). As discussed in chapter 5, power is inherent in any organizational relationship and is present everywhere (Lamb, 2013), including in civil-military relations (Huntington, 1957; Levy,

2014; Snider, 2017). The historical discourse analysis in chapter 5 pointed to a pattern of power manifestation closely resembling the progression of dissent. Kassing (2012) held that dissent is ultimately a process; employees recognize the incongruence between the actual and desired state of affairs as they feel apart from the organization. The issue exceeds tolerance for risk and then dissenters speak out. Likewise, the chronology in chapter 4 and analysis in chapter 5 revealed that within civil-military relations, power in dissent followed a pattern: Power was displayed, reacted to, and battled for. A period of consolidation then occurred as groups solidified power for a weakened, final engagement marking the terminus of dissent. This research discovered that dissenters did not employ all power types. Rather, legitimate and expert power emerged as the most prevalent types

(using Raven and French’s 1958 power typology). The political class gravitated toward legitimate power use, the target person (the U.S. Army) complying because the political class believed it had the right to make the request and the target person had the obligation

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to comply. The U.S. Army also used legitimate power in establishing its own regulations, but relied upon expert power as revealed in Table 4.2. Casting itself as the expert for military readiness (keeping in mind that the Cold War was in full swing), the U.S. Army often stated that desegregation would adversely impact the U.S. Army’s ability to fight, echoing the sentiments of Marine Corps Commandant Clifton B. Cates: “Changing national policy in this respect through the armed forces is a dangerous path to pursue in as much as it affects the ability of the National Military Establishment to fulfill its mission” (1949, Facts on File, p. 133, as cited in Mershon & Schlossman, 1998. p. 204 and Nalty & MacGregor, 1981, p. 184). Royall likewise pointed to Negroes adversely impacting the U.S. Army’s ability to fight. “The history of two world wars has demonstrated that in general Negro troops have been less qualified than white troops” (K.

Royall, Statement before the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and

Opportunity in the Armed Forces, 28 March 1949). Burk (2005) and Snider (2017) noted that the political class relies on the expertise of the military class, and the military applies expert knowledge and practice and often feels it has significant autonomy in its practice.

Display of power. Dissenters first recognize the incongruence between the actual and desired state of affairs and then they speak out (Berg, 2011; Kassing, 2009a, 2012).

There has to be a reason, a motive why dissent occurs (Jetten & Hornsey, 2015). The military and the political class displayed power in two events that served as catalysts for dissent over desegregation. On 1 January 1944, the “Digest of War Department Policy

Pertaining to Negro Military Personnel” relegated Negroes to comprising 10% of the U.S.

Army. In establishing this policy, the U.S. Army demonstrated its power to enact and enforce regulations regarding the composition of its troops, a manifestation of legitimate

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power stemming from formal authority over work activities (Yukl & Falbe, 1990).

President Truman’s EO 9981 of 26 July 1948 also demonstrated the president’s legitimate power. EOs are formal bases for presidential power with legal force based on the president’s constitutional or statutory authority (Moe & Howell, 1999). Presidents

“take an expansive view of their own power when it suits them, and use executive orders to expand the boundaries of their authority” (Mayer, 1999, p. 448). EOs establish policy.

Chapter 5 noted that EO 9981 also established the President’s Committee on Equality of

Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services (the Fahy Committee) to implement the president’s policy of equality of treatment and opportunity for all members of the armed forces. Truman’s display of legitimate power was unique, seldom occurring in the historical context of desegregation of the U.S. Army.

The chronology in chapter 4 revealed that the desegregation issue festered from

1945 to 1948 until Truman felt compelled to act. The display of power exceeded his tolerance for political risk. Truman waited until he had the Democratic Party’s support for president, strengthening his political and legitimate power. Knowing he had a lock on his party’s nomination for president (as noted in chapter 4), he had the political capital to speak out and display his power with less risk than earlier in 1948. In addition, he may have sought to mitigate any competition for legitimate or other forms of power from lower, hierarchical groups: the top hierarchical group is more inclined to respond to dissent over a quest for power from those lower in the hierarchy as the lower groups seek to dissent upward (Kassing & Armstrong, 2002). As noted in the following subsections, the 10:1 policy and EO 9981 would stimulate dissent over desegregation of the military, the 10:1 policy itself an act of dissent.

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Reaction to power. Subordinates have the capacity to indirectly influence the power displayed by the top of the hierarchy, having “counter-power” over a leader (Yukl,

2013, p. 196). The evidence in chapter 4 indicated that in response to a display of power, like an EO, participants reacted to power by displaying power of their own.

In response to the U.S. Army’s display of legitimate power on 1 August 1944 establishing the 10:1 ratio, state legitimate power was pitted against federal legitimate power. State executives (governors) took legal action over U.S. Army policies and regulations as a reaction to the U.S. Army’s power to enact its own regulations.

As the power process unfolded as part of the dissent over desegregation, it also revealed a reversal of the principal-agent (political-military) relationship as groups reacted to the initial display of power. As noted in chapters 1 and 2, civil-military researchers have referred to the relationship between the political and military groups as principal-agent (Feaver, 1999). This is discussed further in the Implications for Practice section, but is noted here as this reversal in which the agent becomes the principal occurs as groups develop their own internal, informed opinions or display power of their own as they react to the macro-power manifestation. In military terms, in the power-reaction phase of dissent, groups are preparing for battle, marshaling forces, gathering resources for the fight to come. Lammers (1969) referred to this as the vertical power conflict, the use of power between the “ruler and ruled” (p. 558).

As groups react to power, when the power is manifested at the top of the hierarchy, groups either close ranks and insulate themselves or go to society, what

Kassing (2007, 2009b, 2013) called “circumvention.” Circumvention is “going around one’s immediate supervisor or boss to express dissent to someone higher in the chain of

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command” (Kassing & Kava, 2013, p. 47) and is presented here because power and hierarchy are often related (Yukl, 2013). Findings suggested that as the power process unfolded, political and military groups reacted to macro power by finding power of their own, in some cases other-than-legitimate-power, through circumvention. However,

Kassing (2009b) viewed circumvention as the most oppositional dissent tactic, often resulting in negative reactions from those who were circumvented. Kassing also focused on circumvention in upward dissent typology, but findings here suggested that outward circumvention played a prominent if overlooked role in dissent.

Within-group reaction to power. Chapter 5 analyzed General Marshall’s 1941 declaration that the U.S. Army is not a sociological laboratory and the subsequent U.S.

Army issue of the Gillem Board report (November 1945), a “Report on the Negro

Soldier” (December 1946), and the “Negro in the Army” (28 April 1949). Chapter 5 revealed these events as U.S. Army internal efforts to develop an informed opinion over the merits of segregation, building cohesion, and insulating itself against the display of legitimate power from the top of the hierarchy, suggesting a linkage to informational power (Yukl, 2013). Internal reports for the U.S. Army audience contributed to bolstering power within the organization and reinforcement of segregation as a policy. Kassing

(2013) held that direct factual appeal is the most common and often the most effective dissent tactic. The present research suggested that civil-military groups appealed directly and factually within their ranks and employed a less common dissent tactic in circumvention, the most oppositional and least effective dissent tactic. The present study found in the wake of high levels of power (as in a regulation or law in legitimate power), groups close ranks and circumvent.

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Kassing and Kava (2013) suggested that circumvention is practiced because dissenters feel the supervisor is not “responsive to their concerns, ineffectual at addressing those concerns, ineffective in their role,” unfair, or unethical (p. 50). Kassing found circumvention close to resignation on the Upward Dissent Scale as an antisocial dissent tactic when subordinates feel ignored or slighted (Kassing & Kava, 2013).

Findings presented here suggested that circumvention as a dissent tactic has moderate success as a reaction to legitimate power. In reacting to the U.S. Army 10:1 policy, one state government (New Jersey) successfully circumvented the policy for State

Guard units with legal action, employing legitimate power of its own, and other states

(Connecticut, Minnesota) followed suit.

Power—reaction to society. As groups react to legitimate power, when the power is manifested at the top of the hierarchy, research suggests that political or military groups may close ranks, insulate, and circumvent. Findings also indicated that groups seek to bolster their power by engaging the out-group, society. Chapter 5 discussed political and military group interaction with the social group occurring in many of the genres in the media/formation of public opinion field of action. Media is a primary means to reach the social group (Lamb, 2013). Findings revealed that even the threat of going to the press had an influential effect on dissent over desegregation.

For example, in November 1949, Charles Fahy threatened to go to the press over the U.S. Army’s plan, “Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army,” because the U.S.

Army plan did not meet the intent of EO 9981. As discussed previously, the U.S. Army plan itself represented a reaction to the legitimate power of the president in EO 9981.

Threatening to go to the press, to seek the power of the out-group, points to the coercive

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effects of threats to go outside the groups in dissent. Kassing (1998, 2012) suggested that coercion in displaced dissent borders on the dark, sinister forces in dissent, lack of mutual trust leading to displaced dissent. The least effective and most virulent dissent type

(Kassing, 1998, 2012), threatening to go to the press, effected dissent, embroiling passions and leading the political group to urge those in the top of the hierarchy to use all types of power in their arsenal to stifle the dissent. As noted in chapter 4, in the wake of the November 1949 Fahy threat to go to the press, New York Senator Irving Ives wrote the president as commander-in-chief of the armed forces “to intervene . . . for the purpose of insisting that your own Order be obeyed” (I. Ives, personal correspondence to H. S.

Truman, 5 December 1949), suggesting a power progression from legitimate to coercive.

Chapters 4 and 5 also revealed the growing use of official press releases as either a reaction to power or a tactic to gain power over society. On 11 May 1949 and 7 June

1949, the SecDef issued press statements that the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy had complied with EO 9981. The latter instance made specific mention that the U.S. Army had not yet complied and was “restudying” the issue. The president himself issued a press release in October of that same year, one of the few he ever issued on the matter, stating,

“The last report of the SecDefense was a progress report.” As chapter 4 noted, the president did not take the advice of his committee (or Senator Ives) to use his power directly to force U.S. Army compliance, stating, instead, that “eventually we will reach, I hope, what we contemplated in the beginning.” This suggests a persuasive component to use of coercive power, where legitimate-power groups or institutions rarely resort to maximum power manifestation, a technique of benefit to legitimate power elites (van

Dijk, 2008).

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In terms of those circumvented legitimate-power entities in the hierarchy using other power types to end the dissent, Kassing was primarily concerned with the motivations and roles of the dissenter (Kassing, 2009b; Kassing & Armstrong, 2002); he did not directly speak to the circumvented in dissent. He contended that circumvention is ineffective because the audience lacks power to effect change, making displaced dissent the least effective dissent type (Kassing, 2009b; Kassing & Anderson, 2014). Dissent research is mixed, with one researcher suggesting that powerful groups do not use maximum power when they seek confirmative/positive relationships, but reformative/negative relationships are another matter (Whelan, 2013). Evidence in chapter 4 indicated that Truman sought a more positive, consensus, compromise, balanced approach than pure challenge and attacking tactics in power-dissent. Truman relied on legitimate power and resisted the urge to force compliance in coercive power.

Battle for power. Present findings indicated that after the display of legitimate power, and the reaction to it, groups engaged in a battle for other forms of power to make their dissent stronger. These other types of power bordered on reward, referent, and coercive power and involved the power of the social group. As noted in chapter 5, the public level is located between the state and the private. Chapter 5 revealed a pitched battle in the public domain for society’s influence over desegregation of the U.S. Army.

In sum, a battle for utilization of social power resulted in a melee of internecine and out- group warfare occurring in military to social, political to social, and social to social instances.

As noted in the “Dissent and Power” section of chapter 2, in reward power, the target person complies in order to obtain rewards he or she believes are controlled by the

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agent. In referent power events, the target person complies because he or she admires or identifies with the agent and wants to gain the agent’s approval. In coercive power, the target person complies in order to avoid punishments he or she believes are controlled by the agent (Raven & French, 1958; Yukl, 2013). In organizations, subordinates have the capability to indirectly influence the performance evaluation of their boss and can damage the reputation of the boss if they dissent in coercive power (Yukl, 2013, p. 196).

Expert power use occurs in indirectly influencing the boss’s reputation. The performance evaluation for a president occurs every 4 years; as noted in chapter 4, Truman revealed his calculations leading up to the Democratic National Convention in July 1948, as he did not want to upset the electorate over desegregation. Table 5.4 on the media/formation of public opinion analysis revealed that the U.S. Army attempted to shape public opinion in four instances. Yukl (2013) suggested the ultimate form of coercive power is when subordinates topple the leader. Coups do not happen in the United States, but the military’s ability to influence society is well documented (Snider, 2017), and the present research suggested that the U.S. Army sought to appeal to the public to influence the political group, a use of coercive power. Chapter 1 discussed the fact that the military had misgivings about Truman, a casus belli to use coercive power.

People are also willing to carry out requests made by someone they admire in referent power; influence increases over the target person commensurate with the reverence (Yukl, 2013). Americans greatly admired their generals and admirals in the postwar years (Haynes, 1973). The evidence in chapter 4 did not support an overt U.S.

Army use of referent power. However, historical evidence does support that the military and political groups were aware of the impact a parade of bemedaled uniformed generals

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could have with the electorate and congressional committees (Haynes, 1973), suggesting the military employed referent power with the social group in their struggle with the political group. Yukl (2013), however, cautioned that some things are too much to ask for in referent power, and the target group may have allegiances to the leader which, if great, undermine the relationship to the revered, which may be why battling for referent power in the public domain is risky and often not effective.

Chapter 4 discussed the end of World War II and the establishment of the Joint

Chiefs of Staff, strengthening the military’s legitimate power in civil-military relations.

As the military develops its own expert knowledge and practice, providing a vital service to the society it serves, it subsequently earns the trust of that society. Expert power augments legitimate power. The trust, in turn, grants the military significant autonomy to practice its expertise on behalf of society, emboldening the military’s power (Snider,

2017). Thus, the precepts of civil-military relations bring social forces into dissent in expert power because society depends on that expertise. The social class with its high connection to the political-military conflict has power (Saas & Hall, 2016; Schiff, 1995).

Within the context of this present study, the political and military groups battled for the social group’s reward and coercive power to strengthen their dissent over desegregation of the U.S. Army.

Kassing (2012) found relationships between displaced dissent and decreased work engagement. The greater the dissent expressed outwardly to society, the greater the employee’s desire to leave the organization. Displaced dissent is adversarial, more virulent than upward and lateral dissent (Kassing, 1998). When there is lack of trust, employees are more likely to dissent outwardly. As noted previously, relations between

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the military and Truman were fair overall, and often acrimonious on desegregation. In highly formalized organizations (like the military), research has indicated that due to a small set of choices to express dissent, dissent is more likely to occur to external audiences (Otken & Cenkci, 2015). However, Goldman and Myers (2015) found no correlation between job involvement86 and displaced dissent.

Nonetheless, as noted in chapter 5, the social group’s location within civil- military relations acted as a legitimate power enhancer for the dissenting group. Those with legitimate power at the top of the hierarchy recognized the enabling feature of the social group’s coercive and reward powers, commenting that A. Philip Randolph was an

“influential Negro” along with the groups he represented (as voiced by the president’s staff in December 1947). To have the “influential Negro’s” coercive and reward powers suggests it could only serve to increase the president’s legitimate power at the polls.

Chapter 4’s chronology revealed the president was also aware of this delicate balance between increasing his legitimate power at the expense of giving the social group too much reward and coercive power too soon. When urged to make a statement before the

Democratic Convention in 1948, the president overruled his staff, stating he did not want to give the social class too much influence over his own waning legitimate power in the face of the Southern Dixiecrats. Truman wanted to use EO 9981 to preempt a growing

Negro social influence, seeking that power for himself. Given the reward and coercive powers of the electorate, this conclusion is seemingly at odds with the depiction of dissent to out-groups as displaced in dissent theory, which holds the external audience as unable to enact change.

86 Snider (2017) characterized the military officer as the most “involved” of all the professions. The military faithfully executes its orders with a high ethic; employees seldom quit or resign. 239

Kassing suggested that lateral dissent is akin to neglect, in that it reaches audiences that are ineffectual and unable to enact change due to lack of power (Kassing,

1997, 2011; Kassing & Anderson, 2014). However, in outward dissent typologies (for example, military to social and political to social), chapter 5 indicated that both the political and military groups viewed the social group as influential in tipping the balance of legitimate power in their favor. As noted in chapter 2, Moore (2000) proposed a two- actor world composed of state and dissidents, with both groups interested in imposing their preferred opinions on society. Actually, civil-military relations are a three-actor world, composed of the civil (political) group, the military group, and the social group; the political and military groups battle for the social group’s power. While Moore (2000) did not cite Raven and French, he did describe power as something imposed upon society, the dissenter knowing what is best for the public, suggesting coercive and expert power types. Moore (2000) proposed a reactionary state model, where the state does not act upon what it thinks the dissident group will do next but what it has just done in a reward-coercive relationship, where dissidents can impose or save costs just as they can coerce the state with sabotage (Yukl, 2013). To the military and political groups, the

Moore model meant battling for society’s influence in dissent over desegregation, seizing the initiative in the public domain; dissenters could embrace the change and save group resources, or they could sabotage the effort to desegregate in coercive power.

U.S. Army measures, ignoring the recommendations of the Fahy Committee, exacerbated conflict with both the social and political class. Chapter 4 demonstrated the

Negro press as very vocal because the U.S. Army measures in 1949, a year after EO

9981, only served to preserve segregation, not promote desegregation. The Arkansas

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State Press summed up the battle occurring over the social group, urging the application of coercive power from the upper hierarchy of the political class in an article addressed to the president:

There is nothing in this allegedly “new” Army policy to benefit the mass of Negro servicemen or to forward the aims of your civil rights program. We therefore urge you to overrule Defense Secretary Johnson who apparently wearied of bucking the Army brick wall. By its action, the Army has prolonged the federal caste system.

Findings indicated that after the display of legitimate power, and the reaction to it, groups engaged in a battle for other power types to make their dissent stronger. The battle occurred in the public domain for society’s power over desegregation of the U.S. Army.

And after any battle, groups generally try to solidify their gains.

Solidify power. Powerful forces exist within organizations in dissent (Humphreys et al., 2013). Humphreys et al. (2013) drew on Lammers (1969), who suggested that the act of dissent is a protest movement in a formal organization designed to improve or maintain the group’s legitimate power. Lammers (1969) also suggested that cohesion promotes group solidification and legitimate power and that the dissent group’s power is dependent upon the legitimate power of management, a view shared by Coser (1957).

Jetten and Hornsey (2014) held that groups seek cohesion to improve legitimate power before dissent or as dissent occurs because dissent represents a splinter group, threatening cohesion, and cohesion equals legitimate power. Elections and conformity augment legitimate power (Raven & French, 1958, as cited in Yukl, 2013). On the other hand,

Jetten and Horney (2014) also noted that tolerating dissent can make groups stronger, the group showing that it acts “in accordance with their beliefs and values, and this strengthens the social fabric of the group” (p. 472), a view drawn from Coser (1957).

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“Sociologists have even suggested that a group’s solidarity benefits from tolerating

[dissent] as it shows the strength of the group to deal with plurality of views and behaviors” (Jetten & Horney, 2014, p. 474). Such measures are particularly important for the military, where cohesion is vital to operational effectiveness, suggesting a linkage between legitimate power and cohesion.

Chapter 5 suggested that the party-internal development of informed opinion field of action used facts as an internal legitimate or expert power enabler in lateral and displaced (outward) dissent typologies. As the U.S. Army and the Fahy Committee issued internal reports in an effort to develop group opinion, the group coalesced and insulated itself. Yukl (2013) characterized this as using informational power, the control of information about and interpretation of outside events to influence perception and attitude.

The legitimate power of the Fahy Committee ultimately came from the president.

He was very clear in solidifying the committee’s legitimate power with his own legitimate and coercive power in January 1949.

I want this job done and I want to get it done in a way so everybody will be happy to cooperate to get it done. Unless it is necessary to knock somebody’s ears down, I don’t want to have to do that, but if it becomes necessary, it can be done. But that’s about all I have to tell you. (Minutes, Meeting of the President and the Four Service Secretaries with the President’s Committee on the Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 12 January 1949, as cited in MacGregor, 1981, p. 348; Mershon & Schlossman, 1998, p. 190; Dalfiume, 1968)

The president’s statement not only solidified the legitimate power of the committee, it also empowered the political subgroup in Fahy; empowerment of groups is more successful when there is agreement about objectives, a willingness to assume responsibility for making decisions, and mutual trust (Yukl, 2013, p. 421). Chapters 4 and

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5 suggested that a great deal of trust existed between the president and the Fahy

Committee.

In terms of the U.S. Army solidifying its legitimate and expert power, the Gillem

Board represented an example of the U.S. Army forming a cohesive bond around keeping

Negroes out of important jobs. As noted in chapter 4, the Gillem Board was a 1945-1946 internal U.S. Army review of the Negro question. One member said, “The Army must recognize the ineptitude and limited capacity of the Negro soldier.” The U.S. Army cited

“facts” to conclude that Negroes didn’t measure up to the capabilities of other soldiers

(expert power). It formed the Gillem Board under its own authority (legitimate power).

Such statements of the Gillem Board stimulated other internal manifestations of power in the dissident group. As noted in chapter 4, Major Cocklin’s “Report on the

Negro Soldier,” which appeared in the Infantry Journal for an Army audience, served to insulate the U.S. Army from harmful statements in the Negro press. Cocklin characterized Negro press involvement dissenting over segregation as “hellfire and brimstone,” going so far as to blame the Negro press for why white officers appeared discriminatory. Arousing anger or resentment is coercive power, often resulting in retaliation (Yukl, 2013, p. 205).

To Kassing (2009a), attempts to build group cohesion and solidify power87 in the wake of dissent represent the dissent tactic of insulation and closing ranks; this occurs frequently in organizations where the supervisor is the highest, most legitimate powerful entity at the top of the hierarchy. This supports the present research finding that power patterns emerge in dissent. Power is displayed, reacted to, and battled for. A period of

87 He did not indicate which type of power. 243

consolidation then occurs as groups seek cohesion to increase their legitimate and coercive power in a weakened, final engagement marking the terminus of open dissent.

The final battle. Dissenters first recognize the incongruence between the actual and desired state of affairs, the start of dissent, but research is limited on the terminus of dissent. Hirschman (1970) held that when voice ends, loyalty and exit are the only two remaining options. Drawing on Hirschman (1970), Kassing (2009a, 2013) suggested resignation as a final dissent tactic (and not a very effective one). Kassing and Kava

(2013) suggested that dissent never really terminates; employees quit when there is an impasse with management, but the issue still remains, and resignation is the least effective and least used dissent tactic. Scott et al. (2013) examined the terminus of dissent in after-action reviews in groups (including firefighters and the military) that sought to learn through collective retrospection. Scott et al. (2013) found that when participants did not perceive openness to divergent perspectives, they felt apart from the group (Kassing,

1998); the after-action review process was less legitimate and the dissenter was not satisfied. In ambiguous situations, when groups have different perspectives, Scott et al.

(2013) suggested dissent might continue because the dissenter does not feel the outcome is satisfactory.

Chapters 4 and 5 suggested that dissent ends when all types of power are expended by the dissenting group: a weak, final stand occurs as the dissenting group expends all its power or realizes its power is insufficient to overcome the power of the group receiving the dissent. Why engage in a final battle that seems doomed to failure?

The reason may be to preserve the history for future group members or form a last redoubt to drive the dissent underground, where the dark, extreme forces of dissent (such

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as shirking, sedition, and mutiny) may take hold (Lammers, 1969). Coercive power is invoked by threat or warning (Yukl, 2013); a final warning that desegregation would ruin the U.S. Army may serve to preserve some vestige of coercive power, even if the warning never comes true.

Once dissent is overcome, the dissenter will either try a final last stand or terminate dissent. On 27 March 1950, the U.S. Army issued an order to its field commanders, effective within the month of April, opening all enlistments to qualified applicants without regard to race or color. Such an order represented that for the U.S.

Army the battle was lost—it was the end of U.S. Army dissent over desegregation.

However, chapter 5 also indicated that the dissent battle then continued in the political group. On 19 June 1950, Georgia Senator Russell sought to pass an amendment to the

Draft Act preserving segregation, which was defeated. Within the power-dissent relationship, these findings suggest that in capitulation, the dissenter lacks power to convince the dissent receiver that its views are not universal. Findings indicate that more research is needed on the terminus of dissent.

Dissent as Occurring Simultaneously, Across Levels

Lamb’s (2013) historical discourse analysis ranges from state (open, overt) to private levels of communication and their commensurate fields of action, as depicted in

Figure 5.1. Lamb (2013) held that many of the fields of action and their subsequent genres occur simultaneously. Analysis in chapter 5 postulated that dissent may be manifested in the state and private levels, from a law-making procedure to a meeting with a politician, at the same time. Present research suggested adding a third level—public.

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Chapter 5 revealed that military, political, and social groups dissent in the same operating space, supporting Finding 4:

Dissent theory characterizes dissent as a sequential, two-step process involving

recognition and speaking out. Present research revealed dissent as a complicated

process occurring in state, public, and private levels simultaneously across many

fields of action.

Dissent in civil-military relations was manifested in three levels (state, public, and private) and six fields of action, with each field of action having a corresponding genre, as noted in Figure 5.1. The fields of action are (1) law-making procedures, (2) political/executive administration, (3) political control, (4) media/formation of public opinion, (5) internal development of opinion, and (6) formation of working relationships

(Lamb, 2013). Chapter 5 analyzed the expressions across state and private levels through the fields of action and genres, proposing the addition of the public level depicting dissent in Field of Action 4: Media/formation of public opinion, in the white space between Lamb’s (2013) state and private levels.

In addition to state, public, and private levels of simultaneous dissent manifestation, Lamb’s (2013) historical discourse analysis illustrated how simultaneous dissent occurred between and within the three groups comprising civil-military relations.

Kassing (2009a, 2012, 2013) and Goldman and Myers (2015) modeled dissent in a tripartite typology, occurring upward, lateral, and outward. Within the civil-military relationship, chapters 4 and 5 suggested that dissent occurred within and among military, political, and social groups. Findings indicated that dissent occurred simultaneously in all

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three dissent typologies, involving all three civil-military groups, suggesting researchers not limit themselves to tripartite typologies.

Chapter 4 described the expression of dissent in a historical chronology of dissent over desegregation occurring between and within the three groups comprising civil- military relations in the period of the Truman administration, September 1945 to June

1950. The groups were used to frame the contextual manifestation of dissent in each field of action’s genre using Lamb’s (2013) historical discourse analysis in power and hierarchy themes.

Subgroups in the hierarchies within the three civil-military relationship groups also dissented simultaneously. For example, municipal, state, and federal officials in the political class dissented over the U.S. Army’s policy to segregate state National Guard units. Different ranks within the U.S. Army also played roles in dissent, from Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall to Major Cocklin in his 1946 “Report on the Negro

Soldier.”

Berg (2011) suggested that top groups in organizations are encased in their views of the world and feedback from lower groups is withheld because the lower group feels vulnerable to the displeasure of the more powerful groups. Berg (2011) suggested that lower hierarchy groups dissent upward; however, present findings indicated that groups and subgroups at different levels dissent, often simultaneously.

The present research suggested that hierarchy and power play important roles in dissent, but dissent is not an output of hierarchy and power. Rather, dissent is a large, complicated interactive process between and among groups manifested within contextual fields of action in state, public, and private levels. In these fields of action, genres are

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voiced through group interactions. Dissent occurs upward, laterally, and outward involving all three groups in the civil-military relationship. This supports the finding that state, public, and private levels dissent simultaneously across many fields of action.

Civil-Military Relations and the Social Group

Research supports Finding 5 that within the civil-military relationship:

The social group at first remains an interested bystander as the political and

military groups engage in dissent. As the political and military groups seek power

to bolster their respective positions over the conflict that led to dissent, the social

group becomes embroiled in a pitched battle for power. Dissent reverberates

outward; it affects all components of the civil-military relationship.

Earlier findings on power patterns noted that the social group’s location within civil-military relations acted as a power enhancer for the dissenting group. Present research also supported the importance of the social group in understanding civil-military relations, especially in dissent contexts. In the wake of General Marshall’s 1941 declaration that the U.S. Army was not a sociological laboratory for integration, the U.S.

Army sought to insulate itself from other groups in the debate over desegregation. The chronology in chapter 4 indicated that the U.S. Army was effective, for a time. As noted in Table 4.1, the postwar period (October 1945—January 1948) began with U.S. Army reports dissenting over desegregation and maintaining the 10:1 ratio. The period ended with President Truman finally breaking his silence (MacGregor, 1981; Mershon &

Schlossman, 1998). The president took powerful steps to overcome U.S. Army dissent, including an EO and presidential committee. As Table 4.2 revealed, Negro social groups that had remained on the sidelines began to dissent in the days before the Democratic

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National Convention on 14 July 1948. Lamb’s (2013) historical discourse analysis also revealed that political and military groups sought the influence of the social group as political and military groups worked toward their view of the desired state of affairs within dissent over desegregation of the U.S. Army. As the political-military groups continued to drift apart over the issue of desegregation, dissent increasingly threatened to involve the out-group—society—supporting the conclusion that the social group is at first an interested bystander as the political and military groups engage in dissent.

Conclusions

Based on the findings presented in this research, five conclusions can be drawn.

1. Conflict has an important relationship with dissent. Findings demonstrated that conflict over hierarchy and power leads to dissent. Examining political, military, and social group interaction showed how dissent resulted from conflict. Groups in conflict sought to curry favor with external audiences or broaden their power base, leading to dissent. Likewise, findings indicated that dissent leads to conflict. Groups worked within the hierarchy to stifle or embrace desegregation in their dissent, widening the conflict between groups. Based on group interaction across several fields of action, findings demonstrated both that conflict leads to dissent and dissent leads to conflict.

2. Dissent occurs in upward, lateral, and outward directions. Previous research pointed to clear patterns suggesting the use of one of the three dissent types

(Kassing & Anderson, 2014). In particular, previous research noted that employees express dissent upward, to supervisors or managers in the workplace (Kassing, 2009;

Kassing & Kava, 2013). Research in lateral or outward typologies is rare, and no studies have explored the use of all types in a dissent event, suggesting that dissent occurs within

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one type. Nonetheless, dissent over desegregation of the U.S. Army occurred in upward, lateral, and displaced types.

3. Power unites dissenters and is something dissenters seek (Lammers, 1969).

Power is present in organizational structures, worthy of study within the superior- subordinate relationship as a “locus of dissent” (Kassing & Anderson, 2014). Previous research depicted the dissent-power relationship as access and control over resources, including discourse (Van Dijk, 2008). Power underpins the communication of dissent

(Kassing & Anderson, 2014).

Dissent research has noted the worth of Raven and French’s 1958 power typology, “including coercive power rooted in punishment, reward power, . . . legitimate power based on position, referent power stemming from a desire to please, . . . and expert power” (Kassing & Anderson, 2014, p. 176). Previous dissent power research was mixed.

The hierarchy has power and uses it to establish the conditions for dissent to be heard, to enable dissent (Humphreys et al., 2013; Kassing, 1997, 1998; Scott et al., 2013; Van

Dijk, 2008). On the other hand, some researchers have viewed dissent power as a struggle to be heard, a protest against the hierarchy’s view that it and it alone knows what is best

(Berg, 2011; Kassing & Anderson, 2014; Lammers, 1967; Milliken et al., 2003;

Tompkins & Cheney, 1985). While earlier research described what power is, it did not address how power evolves within dissent.

The struggle for more power was evident in the interactions of groups in civil- military relations in the current research. Groups used several power types to gain greater access to resources, such as voice, shaping dissent over desegregation. A pattern emerged. Groups demonstrated how power evolved. Power displays led to a reaction.

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Battle lines drawn, groups engaged each other in an effort to make their dissent stronger, a melee of internecine and out-group warfare involving all three groups in civil-military relations. Groups consolidated and solidified power before a final skirmish marking the terminus of dissent.

4. Dissent is a complicated, multifaceted process occurring among many social levels simultaneously. This conclusion is in contrast to prior literature (Kassing,

2012), which suggested that dissent was a two-step process: employees recognize the incongruence between the actual and desired state of affairs, which makes them feel distance from the organization. The issue exceeds their tolerance for risk, and they speak out in the second step. Berg (2011) supported the view of the incongruence occurring between groups in hierarchy leading to protest. Moore (2000) also pointed to a sequential, process-oriented dissent. This study showed that dissent does not occur in a preordained, sequential process, and it involves more than the two steps of recognition of incongruence and speaking out.

5. The civil-military relationship involves not two groups, but three. Civil- military literature previously characterized civil-military relations as occurring between two groups: the political and the military. Huntington (1957) called civil-military relations “a complex balancing act between the two groups” (p. 2). Other civil-military theorists supported the duumvirate, describing the civil-military relationship as

“principal-agent” (Coletta & Feaver, 2003, Feaver, 2007, 2011; Snider, 2017). The civil- military literature has focused on the hierarchy of the two groups, a subservient military serving the political group (Avant, 1996; Burk, 2002; Coletta & Feaver, 2003; Feaver,

2007, 2011; Huntington, 1957; Kohn, 2008; Snider, 2017). The present research supports

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the view of Saas and Hall (2016), who added the social group to the political and military groups. Civil-military literature, especially that addressing dissent, has either skirted the importance of the social group or overlooked the social group entirely. Dissent expands within civil-military relations. Within the three groups of civil-military relations, the dissent process initially recuses one group. However, dissent reverberates outward, affecting all civil-military groups.

Implications

A number of important implications can be drawn from this historiographical study. This section presents the implications for dissent theory and the practice of civil- military relations. Recommendations for future research conclude the section.

Implications for Theory

Based in dissent theory, the original conceptualization envisioned hierarchy and power as key factors and common elements in the dissent process (Kassing, 2009a,

Kassing & Anderson, 2014). Communication (usually) by voice (Morrison & Milliken,

2000) occurs as a result of the hierarchy, enabling dissent to flow upward.

Historiography and historical discourse analysis. This historical analysis adds to the growing body of empirical research employing historical methods using primary documentary and narrative source material (Rowlinson et al., 2014). History is used to reinterpret events and to enrich and deepen theoretical insights and interpretation of data

(Greenwood & Bernardi, 2014). The practical tools used in the study (the chronology in

Table 4.1, the historical discourse power-hierarchy analysis in Figure 5.1, and the revised conceptual framework in Figure 6.1) contribute to the viability of Lamb’s (2013)

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analytical framework for future empirical research while strengthening Kassing’s (1997,

1998, 2005, 2008, 2009a, 2009b, 2012, 2013) typologies of dissent depicting upward, lateral, and outward voice expression across groups.

The present research suggests that the desegregation of the U.S. Army was a dissent-rich period in our nation’s history. The U.S. Army was at the forefront of dissent over desegregation (MacGregor, 2001; Mershon & Schlossman, 1998). Despite President

Truman’s powerful position as commander-in-chief, the U.S. Army continued to dissent.

By focusing on the time period from September 1945 to June 1950, this historiographical study makes a contribution to dissent theory and the understanding of civil-military relations through findings related to the role of voice and text in the contextual features of dissent using Lamb’s (2013) analysis in fields of action and genres.

Organizational studies on dissent have been dominated by either quantitative research in the form of data collection and sample (Kassing & Anderson, 2014; Kassing

& Kava, 2013), survey (Goldman & Myers, 2015; Kassing, 1998, 2009a; Otken &

Cenkci, 2015), game theory (Landier et al., 2009), and questionnaire (Kassing, 2008,

2012; Kassing & Armstrong, 2002); or qualitative research in the form of case study

(Berg, 2011), employee narrative (Jetten & Hornsey, 2015), and narrative (Coser, 1956,

1957). This study offered a unique approach to the study of how dissent occurs with a positive outcome in a specific society through communicative contexts across and within the society’s three groups.

Dissent theory. In Kassing’s view, dissent theory rejects the idea that dissent happens quickly. Rather, dissent is expressed in response to multiple issues within organizational climate constraints and is a process of interactions over time. Key factors

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in the dissent process are power and hierarchy (Kassing, 2009a; Kassing & Anderson,

2014), resulting from conflict or causing conflict. Similarly, the present research showed the influence and progression of power within and across groups in a broad dissent field.

Dissent theory notes voice expressions are the second, most recognizable part of dissent, occurring after recognition that a state of incongruence exists between actual and desired worlds. My research noted that dissent is more than a two-step process.

The present research demonstrates the value of power in understanding dissent theory, finding that power patterns emerge in dissent typologies, which affect repetitious dissent over time. Power is displayed, reacted to, and battled for. A period of consolidation then occurs as groups solidify power in a weakened, final engagement marking the terminus of open dissent. The present study supports Kassing’s theoretical conclusion that dissent happens over time. The research offers a deeper understanding of the theoretical construct of time, as well as how dissent happens over a certain time period.

Conflict theory meets dissent theory. The conceptual framework in Figure 1.1 was based on Coser’s (1956, 1957) conflict theory, in which dissent is a byproduct of the normal, social friction occurring between groups. Within these contexts, power and hierarchy play important roles.

There are two schools of thought regarding conflict and dissent. One group of researchers holds dissent as an output of conflict in power and hierarchy (Buckner et al.,

2013; Coser, 1956, 1957, 1967; Falk, 2011; Levy, 2014; Lipsky & Avgar, 2008;

Oberschall, 1978; Wagner-Pacifici & Hall, 2012; Whelan, 2013). Other researchers depict conflict as an output over dissent in power and hierarchy (Gorden & Infante, 1980;

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Harp et al., 2010; Hollister, 2011; Kassing, 1997, 1998, 2011; Kassing & Kava, 2013;

Land, 2007; Milliken et al., 2003; Millman, 2005; Moore, 2000; Morrison & Milliken,

2000; Young, 2015). This research points to dissent as a large, complicated field where levels of hierarchy and power typologies lead to the manifestation of dissent as both an output of and an input to conflict. Dissent does not occur solely in response to conflict, nor does conflict result solely from dissent. Rather, dissent occurs because of conflict just as much as conflict results from dissent. Dissent occurs over time and is manifested in upward, lateral, and displaced typologies. Dissent is a broad field involving groups in hierarchies looking inward and outward, with power and voice manifestations employed through multiple dissent tactics occurring simultaneously.

Revised conceptual framework. The historical discourse analysis clarified the study’s original conceptual framework (Figure 1.1). The revised conceptual framework in

Figure 6.1 represents the study’s theoretical contribution to dissent theory.

The original conceptual framework was based on Coser’s (1956, 1957) conflict theory, which views dissent as a byproduct of the normal, social friction occurring between groups. Kassing’s (1997, 1998, 2005, 2008, 2009a, 2009b, 2012, 2013) typologies of dissent depict upward, lateral, and outward voice expression across groups.

The present research supports dissent as a voice expression, but advances dissent theory in characterizing dissent as a social action, voiced through spoken and/or written actions, occurring over time, in primarily social contexts, although private contexts also play a role. Kassing (2013) explained that dissent happens as a tactic to present a solution, appeal factually, circumvent authority, or wear the other side down through repetition.

This study advances research on how dissent occurs in positive historical outcomes, with

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evidence suggesting that the U.S. Army was not always interested in a solution to the problem.

Kassing (1997, 1998, 2009a, 2014) did not directly define power in his research; my research addresses the shortcomings of previous research, suggesting that several power types play important roles as groups struggle for more power.

As noted in chapters 4 and 5, the U.S. Army developed significant power after

World War II, both in informal influence and formal authority. The reverberation of dissent outward in power and hierarchical themes impacted relationships, society, leaders in civil-military relations, and junior U.S. Army leaders (Snider, 2008). The present research points to a deeper understanding of the roles that power and hierarchy play in dissent. The revised conceptual framework in Figure 6.1 depicts the findings noted above—that dissent occurs because of conflict just as much as conflict results from dissent. It is always present in relationships (Coser, 1957) and hence is depicted in the upper left-hand corner of the figure as a cloud. Figure 6.1 depicts dissent occurring over time, as a broad field involving groups in hierarchies, with power patterns emergent in dissent. Research and findings have added the third level, public, to Lamb’s (2013) analysis, an addition reflected in Figure 6.1, where state, public, and private levels dissent simultaneously across many fields of action.

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Figure 6.1. Revised conceptual framework.

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Implications for Civil-Military Practice

Historical approach for dissent in civil-military relations. The methodology of this study provides an often overlooked, historical research-based technique for those who work in the civil-military field. Lamb’s (2013) historical discourse analysis is an appropriate methodology for the U.S. Army to study dissent in civil-military relations; the U.S. Army is an institution where historical study is prevalent in Army centers for higher learning, where leadership, battles, and strategic thought are studied from historical perspectives.88

Lamb’s (2013) historical discourse analysis complements historiographical chronological approaches based on archival research repositories (Anteby & Molnar,

2012; Rowlinson et al., 2014). The historical discourse analysis offered in the present research presented a higher level of analysis via examining the contexts and field of action of power and hierarchy in dissent within civil-military relations. This research provided additional insights into how dissent happens within the three groups comprising civil-military relations.

More integration of history is needed in organizational studies (Wadhwani &

Bucheli, 2014). The present research progressed in a qualitative, historiographical approach using a framework proposed by Rowlinson et al. (2014), where the analytically structured historical approach retains narrative as the main focus of explanation, achieving insight into civil-military relations not achieved through other approaches. The integration of dissent history from September 1945 to June 1950 revealed interactions

88 I am an adjunct professor at the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff Officers College and have also worked at the U.S. Army War College. 258

between groups in conflict that enabled research and analysis determining how dissent happens in civil-military contexts.

Understanding the civil-military relationship. As previously mentioned,

General Martin Dempsey, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and principal military adviser to the president, noted that “civil-military relations are a rocky road. . . .

The question is how it [the relationship] is managed and understood.” No one really understands the reasons for dissent between these groups (Garamone, 2014). This research answered the call for more understanding: the strategic leader needs to understand how dissent works, to elicit dissent and encourage open dialogue in the civil- military relationship (Murphy, 2012), to understand what we don’t know, linking theory and practice.

For the U.S. Army operating in a modern, civil-military relationship, dissent theory and Lamb’s (2013) historical discourse analysis provide a framework for understanding the dissent processes at work in a dynamic, hierarchical relationship that often calls on the military to do much more than Huntington could imagine. Huntington

(1957) envisioned military participation in the political system, where soldiers were drawn from society to defend the homeland in war while developing expertise in an arena separate from the political group in peace. The present research offers a deeper understanding of how these groups interact in civil-military relations in dissent.

Dissent theory is a lens into understanding how the political, military, and social groups participate in the civil-military relations process, as well as voice dissent within that relationship. State, public, and private levels dissent simultaneously across many fields of action, involving one, both, or all three of the civil-military groups. Of the three

259

groups, the social group is at first aloof from the political and military conflagration. As the political and military groups seek power to bolster their respective positions over the conflict that led to dissent, the social group becomes embroiled in the power struggle.

Such an understanding supports a basic conclusion about dissent theory: it is helpful in understanding organizations and group development (Berg, 2011; Kassing, 1997; Landier et al., 2009; Whelan, 2013). As Snider (2008) noted, a desirable pattern of U.S. civil- military relations—including legitimate military dissent—enhances democratic political control while facilitating sound decision-making and the creation of effective military institutions.

Given the proclivities of today’s society to take sides over any issue, civil-military relations will continue to be a rocky road. The present research demonstrated that the use of history is critical to understanding the modern civil-military relationship and may narrow the chasm between the groups. Noted historian David McCullough (2008) called history the “antidote for the hubris of the present. . . . Truman once remarked that the history we don’t know is the only thing new in the world” (p. 15). The same holds true for understanding how dissent occurs within the civil-military relationship.

Recommendations for Future Research

This study’s purpose was to explore the process of dissent in the civil-military relationship, specifically examining the hierarchical and power components of dissent in historical events where the dissent process resulted in positive outcomes. It examined how dissent occurred within a select historical context, namely the time period of the

Truman administration, 1945 to 1950. The study did not intend to address issues related to the dissent process in specific civil-military and organizational theory situations, nor

260

social issues related to the struggle for Negro equality in society. Rather, it promoted understanding of how the dissent process results in positive outcomes between groups in the civil-military relationship. The study’s conclusions provided key insights into understanding how dissent occurred simultaneously across several fields of action and levels of the civil-military relationship.

Future research should analyze the impact of the findings to understand a particular level. For example, Lamb’s (2013) historical discourse analysis proposed two levels in a society: state and private. The present research added a third level—public, operating in the space between state and private. Future research might examine dissent within one level, thereby providing a greater analysis of how dissent happens in one or two fields of action.

Likewise, future research should examine power. The present study proposed a power pattern involving legitimate power displays, reactions, a battle for power involving different power types, solidification, and a weak final battle. Future research might examine how dissent ends in the final battle and its historical implication. Little research exists on how dissent ends. Researchers have ignored the terminus of dissent.

This research demonstrated the role society plays as a bystander-cum-actor in dissent. Future research into either dissent or civil-military relations should examine the role society plays in the relationship. To Whelan (2013), dissent is part of good corporate social responsibility, society comprising the value system in which dissenters recognize that incongruence exists. Kassing (2013) only briefly touched on the role of society as an out-group in displaced dissent. Future research should examine the role of out-groups,

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and society in particular. Future research should move beyond studying upward dissent in the workplace to cover all dissent typologies.

The present research limited itself to a study of dissent involving desegregation of the U.S. Army from September 1945 to June 1950. Desegregation of the U.S. Marine

Corps, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Air Force was discussed only within the context of what was occurring in the U.S. Army at the time. The research demonstrated the viability of

Lamb’s (2013) historical discourse analysis. The analytical framework could easily be employed in historical research regarding the U.S. Army’s sister services. A complete study could then compare and contrast the U.S. Army with the other services within dissent typologies involving desegregation. For example, a future study could examine why the U.S. Air Force was quick to embrace desegregation and the U.S. Army was not.

Studying the other services one at a time would “complete the cycle” and examine the entire armed forces military group comprising civil-military relations. A study per service would make a nice, complete four-piece compendium of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Finally, research has noted that dissent is healthy for organizations (Berg, 2011;

Coser, 1957; Kassing, 1997, 2001, 2002) and those at the top of the political and military hierarchies want the military to practice dissent (Gates, 2008, as cited in Berg, 2011).

However, research has not adequately discussed how the civil-military organizations should find a place for dissent. Civil-military literature is narrow, focusing on control or direction of the military by civilian authorities in democratic nations (Feaver, 2007;

Snider, 2017). Future research should pick up the standard from Gates: “Senior officers should embrace such dissent as healthy dialogue and protect and advance those considerably more junior who are taking on that mantle” (Berg, 2011).

262

Conclusion

As I conclude this study, I take note of the quote from President Truman at the start of chapter 1: “When even one American . . . shuts his mind and closes his mouth, all

Americans are in peril.” The quote and how it is interpreted sum up the study. Truman implied that society suffers when dissent is not present. This could mean any society, even a civil-military one. Young (2015) got it right in his 2015 book, Dissent: The

History of an American Idea: Dissent is necessary in American societies and has always existed since before the Revolutionary War.

I originally and mistakenly relegated the social group’s role to a secondary effort.

My committee adroitly guided me to not dismiss the role of the social group in civil- military relations. This study concluded that the social group plays a vital role in dissent and is inexorably destined for involvement in the process.89

Truman also indicated that dissent is voiced. I explored how dissent over desegregation of the U.S. Army occurred as voice (or text) communication between the civil-military groups in power and hierarchies. The quote implies that dissent is a powerful tool, and the research indicated that power progresses from displays, to reactions, to battles for it.

Interpreting the quote itself also points to my use of historical methods. I was surprised by how interesting history really is. I literally immersed myself in every primary and secondary source discussing the U.S. Army in the period between World

War II and the Korean War. While fascinating, this history distracted me from my

89 This conclusion also suggests that an informed society coupled with a military with linkages to the social group promotes healthy civil-military relations. Having a military stationed behind blast walls is good for force protection, but not for civil-military relations. 263

research goal. I caution would-be historical methodologists not to wade too deeply into the secondary sources despite their entertaining qualities and instead stick to the task at hand.

Despite the growing call for more historical analysis in organizational theory, historical and organizational researchers only occasionally cross paths and then retreat to their respective corners. The present research demonstrated that a viable approach is to have a foot in both camps. It would be interesting to reverse the paradigm used here and use an organizational method for a historiographical study. It is hoped this research will contribute to the growing understanding of dissent within civil-military relations, providing the necessary salve to heal wounds that occasionally drive groups in civil- military relations apart, much to the detriment of the combat soldier. The U.S. Army should encourage dissent as ultimately healthy to the organization, but the U.S. Army is only a small part of civil-military relations. All parties in civil-military relations must recognize dissent’s value as the nation responds to a growing number of threats. Such understanding will make civil-military relations stronger.

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284

APPENDIX A:

KEY PLAYERS IN DISSENT REGARDING DESEGREGATION,

SEPTEMBER 1945–JUNE 1950

Name Position Held Bradley, Omar N. Chief of Staff of the Army (7 Feb 1948–15 Aug 1949), first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (19 Aug 1949–15 Aug 1953)

Carr, Robert K. Harvard Ph.D. (1935) and civil rights expert. Executive secretary of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, authored final committee report To Secure These Rights (1947) Clifford, Clark M. White House counsel (1 Feb 1946–31 Jan 1950) Fahy, Charles Chairman of the President’s Committee of Equality of Treatment and Opportunities in the Armed Forces (1948–1950) Gillem, Alvan C. Lieutenant general, chairman of the Army “Board for Utilization of Negro Manpower” (the Gillem Board), Oct 1945–April 1946 Gray, Gordon Second secretary of the Army (28 April 1949–12 April 1950) Johnson, Louis A. Second Secretary of Defense (28 Mar 1949–19 Sep 1950) Kenworthy, E. W. Executive secretary of the President’s Committee of Equality of Treatment and Opportunities in the Armed Forces McConaughy, 76th governor of Connecticut, died in office (8 Jan 1947–7 Mar 1948) James L. McMahon, Brien Connecticut senator (3 Jan 1945–28 Jul 1952); authored Atomic Energy Act (McMahon Act), 1946; chiefly responsible for civilian control of atomic development Nash, Philleo Ph.D., anthropology, University of Chicago (1935); special assistant to the president (1946–1952). Unofficial advisor to the president on civil rights and desegregation Niles, David K. Political advisor to Truman (1945–1953) Randolph, A. Philip Influential Negro leader, leader of Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, formed Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service Royall, Kenneth C. Brigadier general (Army) (1942–1945); 56th Secretary of War (19 Jul 1947–Sep 18 1947); first secretary of the Army (18 Sep 1947–27 Apr 1949) Truman, Harry S. President of the United States (12 Apr 1945–20 Jan 1953) Youngdahl, Luther 27th governor of Minnesota (8 Jan 1947–27 Sep 1951) W.

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APPENDIX B:

EXECUTIVE ORDER 9981

Establishing the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces. WHEREAS it is essential that there be maintained in the armed services of the United States the highest standards of democracy, with equality of treatment and opportunity for all those who serve in our country’s defense: NOW THEREFORE, by virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, by the Constitution and the statutes of the United States, and as Commander in Chief of the armed services, it is hereby ordered as follows: 1. It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale. 2. There shall be created in the National Military Establishment an advisory committee to be known as the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, which shall be composed of seven members to be designated by the President. 3. The Committee is authorized on behalf of the President to examine into the rules, procedures and practices of the Armed Services in order to determine in what respect such rules, procedures and practices may be altered or improved with a view to carrying out the policy of this order. The Committee shall confer and advise the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of the Air Force, and shall make such recommendations to the President and to said Secretaries as in the judgment of the Committee will effectuate the policy hereof. 4. All executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government are authorized and directed to cooperate with the Committee in its work, and to furnish the Committee such information or the services of such persons as the Committee may require in the performance of its duties. 5. When requested by the Committee to do so, persons in the armed services or in any of the executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall testify before the Committee and shall make available for use of the Committee such documents and other information as the Committee may require. 6. The Committee shall continue to exist until such time as the President shall terminate its existence by Executive order. Harry Truman July 26, 1948

286

APPENDIX C:

CLARK CLIFFORD LETTER TO KENNETH ROYALL, 2 SEPTEMBER 1948

287

288

APPENDIX D:

SUBJECTIVITY STATEMENT

Status as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army, coupled with U.S. Army

Reserve affiliation as an adjunct professor and accreditor for Command and General Staff

Officers’ College, enabled access to official U.S. Army repositories without the need for special permission. I have intimate, professional knowledge of U.S. Army repositories, and there is no conflict of interest as information is provided at Carlisle and Fort

Leavenworth to serve the military community. Familiarity with both military repositories, coupled with the outstanding organization of the Truman Library online archives, enabled the gathering of a veritable plethora of evidence.

While I am an active-duty officer in the United States Army, the Department of

Defense provided no assistance in this research. However, the Veterans Administration provided tuition assistance through the G.I. Bill Chapter 33, and the George Washington

University participates in the Yellow Ribbon Program, providing additional tuition assistance to qualified veterans. As noted in the acknowledgments, this funding was critical in completion of the Executive Leadership Doctoral Program, but it did not directly impact or prejudice the research.

I hope the U.S. Army benefits from studies such as these. In my case, my experiences in the U.S. Army provide the personal connection to the practical application of dissent theory in the civil-military sphere, leading to in-depth knowledge that other, strictly academic, researchers do not have. Furthermore, the choice of the Truman period as a subject of study eliminates any political or military bias that a researcher studying a

21st-century presidential administration would have to contend with.

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