Although politics was only one of several factors that led to Executive Order 9981, the order was born during a presidential election campaign, and its content and timing reflect that fact. Having made what could be justified as a military decision in the interest of a more effective use of manpower in the armed forces, the President and his advisers sought to capitalize on the political benefits that might accrue from it.[12-56] The work of the President's Committee on Civil Rights and Truman's subsequent message to Congress had already elevated civil rights to the level of a major campaign issue. As early as November 1947 Clark Clifford, predicting the nomination of Thomas Dewey and Henry Wallace, had advised the President to concentrate on winning the allegiance of the nation's minority voters, especially the black, labor, and Jewish blocs.[12-57] Clifford had discounted the threat of a southern defection, but in the spring of 1948 southern Democrats began to turn from the party, and the black vote, an important element in the big city Democratic vote since the formation of the Roosevelt coalition, now became in the minds of the campaign planners an essential ingredient in a Truman victory. Through the efforts of Oscar Ewing, head of the Federal Security Administration and White House adviser on civil rights matters, and several other politicians, Harry Truman was cast in the role of minority rights champion.[12-58]
Theirs was not a difficult task, for the President's identification with the civil rights movement had become part of the cause of his unpopularity in some Democratic circles and a threat to his renomination. He overcame the attempt to deny him the presidential nomination in June, and he accepted the strong civil rights platform that emerged from the convention. The resolution committee of that convention had proposed a mild civil rights plank in the hope of preventing the defection of southern delegates, but in a dramatic floor fight Hubert H. Humphrey, the mayor of Minneapolis and a candidate for the U.S. Senate, forced through one of the strongest civil rights statements in the history of the party. This plank endorsed Truman's congressional message on civil rights and called for "Congress to support our President in guaranteeing these basic and fundamental rights ... the right of equal treatment in the service and defense of our nation."[12-59]
Truman admitted to Forrestal that "he had not himself wanted to go as far as the Democratic platform went on the civil rights issue." The President had no animus toward those who voted against the platform; he would have done the same if he had come from their states. But he was determined to run on the platform, and for him, he later said, a platform was not a window dressing. His southern colleagues understood him. When a reporter pointed out to Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina that the President had only accepted a platform similar to those supported by Roosevelt, the governor answered, "I agree, but Truman really means it."[12-60] After the platform fight the Alabama and Mississippi delegates walked out of the convention. The Dixiecrat revolt was on in earnest.
Both the Democratic platform and the report of the President's Civil Rights Committee referred to discrimination in the federal government, a matter obviously susceptible to presidential action. For once the "do-nothing" Congress could not be blamed, and if Truman failed to act promptly he would only invite the wrath of the civil rights forces he was trying to court. Aware of this political necessity, the President's advisers had been studying the areas in which the President alone might act in forbidding discrimination as well as the mechanics by which he might make his actions effective. According to Oscar Ewing, the advisers had decided as early as October 1947 that the best way to handle discrimination in the federal government was to issue a presidential order securing the civil rights of both civilian government employees and members of the armed forces. In the end the President decided to issue two executive orders.[12-61]
Clifford, Ewing, and Philleo Nash, who was a presidential specialist on minority matters, worked on drafting both orders. After consulting with Truman Gibson, Nash proposed that the order directed to the services should create a committee within the military establishment to push for integration, one similar to the McCloy committee in World War II. Like Gibson, Nash was convinced that change in the armed forces racial policy would come only through a series of steps initiated in each service. By such steps progress had been made in the Navy through its Special Programs Unit and in the Army through the efforts of the McCloy committee. Nash argued against the publication of an executive order that spelled out integration or condemned segregation. Rather, let the order to the services call for equal treatment and opportunity—the language of the Democratic platform. Tie it to military efficiency, letting the services discover, under guidance from a White House committee, the inefficiency of segregation. The services would quickly conclude, the advisers assumed, that equal treatment and opportunity were impossible in a segregated system.[12-62] After a series of discussions with the President, Nash, Clifford, and Ewing drew up a version of the order to the services along the lines suggested by Nash.[12-63]
The draft underwent one significant revision at the request of the Secretary of Defense. In keeping with his theory that the services should be given the chance to work out their own methods of compliance with the order to integrate, Forrestal wanted no deadlines set. To keep antagonisms to a minimum he wanted the order to call simply for progress "as rapidly as feasible." The President agreed.[12-64]
The timing of the order was politically important to Truman, and by late July the White House was extremely anxious to publish the document. The President now had his all-important selective service legislation; he was beginning to campaign on a platform calling for a special session of Congress—a Congress dominated by Republicans, who had also just approved a party platform calling for an end to segregation in the armed forces. Haste was evident in the fact that the order, along with copies for the service secretaries, was sent to the Secretary of Defense on the morning of 26 July—the day it was issued—for comment and review by that afternoon.[12-65] The order was also submitted to Walter White and A. Philip Randolph before it was issued.[12-66]
Actually, the order had been read to Forrestal on the evening of the previous day, and his office had suggested one more change. Marx Leva believed that the order would be improved if it mentioned the fact that substantial progress in civil rights had been made during the war and in the years thereafter. Since a sentence to this effect had been included in Truman's civil rights message of February, Leva thought it would be well to include it in the executive order. Believing also that policy changes ought to be the work of the government or of the executive branch of the government rather than of the President alone, he offered a sentence for inclusion: "To the extent that this policy has not yet been completely implemented, such alterations or improvements in existing rules, procedures and practices as may be necessary shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible." Although Forrestal approved the sentence, it was not accepted by the President.[12-67]
Approvals were quickly gathered from interested cabinet officials. The Attorney General passed on the form and legality of the order. Forrestal was certain that Stuart Symington of the Air Force and John L. Sullivan, Secretary of the Navy, would approve the order, but he suggested that Oscar Ewing discuss the draft with Kenneth Royall. According to Ewing, the Secretary of the Army read the order twice and said, "tell the President that I not only have no objections but wholeheartedly approve, and we'll go along with it."[12-68]
The historic document, signed by Truman on 26 July 1948, read as follows: