Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965

by Morris J. MacGregor

Table 29—Distribution of Servicemen in Occupational Groups by Race, 1967

Group / Activity	White		Black			Unknown	Total
	Number	Percent Dist.	Number	Percent Dist.	Percent of Total in Each Group / Activity	Number	Number
Combat troops	324,560	12.1	55,518	18.7	14.5	2,646	382,724
Electronics
repairmen	239,595	9.0	13,843	4.7	5.5	204	253,642
Communications
specialists	191,372	7.2	12,856	4.4	6.3	392	204,620
Medical personnel	101,793	3.8	11,074	3.8	9.8	76	112,943
Other technicians	52,132	1.9	3,812	1.3	6.8	86	56,030
Administrative
personnel	430,186	16.1	55,543	18.8	11.4	986	486,715
Mechanical
repairmen	498,899	18.6	39,820	13.5	7.4	794	539,513
Draftsmen	144,070	5.4	15,728	5.3	9.8	248	160,046
Service & supply
personnel	283,976	10.6	53,136	18.0	15.7	998	338,110
Miscellaneous / unknown	245,055	9.1	14,964	5.1	13.5	1,337	261,356
Trainees[a]	166,478	6.2	18,753	6.4	10.1	1,194	186,425
Total	2,678,116	100.0	295,047	100.0	9.9	8,961	2,982,124

Tablenote a: Represents an Army category only.

Source: Bahr, "The Expanding Role of the Department of Defense As an Instrument of Social Change." Bahr's table is based on unpublished data from the DASD (CR).

If a man's assignment and promotion depended ultimately on his aptitude category, that category depended upon his performance in the Armed Forces Qualifying Test and other screening tests usually administered at induction. These tests have since been widely criticized as being culturally biased, more a test of an individual's understanding of the majority race's cultural norms than his mental aptitude. Even the fact that the tests were written also left them open to charges of bias. Some educational psychologists have claimed that an individual's performance in written tests measured his cultural and educational background, not his mental aptitude. It is true that the accuracy of test measurements was never reassessed in light of the subsequent performance of those tested. The services paid little attention to these serious questions in the 1960's, yet as a Defense Department task force studying the administration of military justice was to observe later:

the most important determination about a serviceman's future career (both in and out of the service) is made almost solely on the basis of the results of these tests: where he will be placed, how and whether he will be promoted during his hitch, and whether what he will learn in the service will be saleable for his post-service career.[22-50]

The Department of Defense depended on the "limited predictive capability of these tests," the task force charged, in deciding whether a serviceman was assigned to a "soft core" field, that is, given a job in such categories as transportation or supply, or whether he could enter one of the more profitable and prestigious "hard core" fields that would bring more rapid advancement.

Accurate and comprehensive testing and the measurement of acquired skills was obviously an important and complex matter, but in 1963 it was ignored by both the Civil Rights Commission and the Gesell Committee. President Kennedy, however, seemed aware of the problem. Before leaving for Europe in the summer of 1963 he called on the Secretary of Defense to consider establishing training programs keyed primarily to the special problems of black servicemen found ineligible for technical training. According to Lee White, the President wanted to use new training techniques "and other methods of stimulating interest and industry" that might help thousands of men bridge "the gap that presently exists between their own educational and cultural backgrounds and those of the average white serviceman."[22-51]

Because of the complexity of the problem, White agreed with Fitt that the program should be postponed pending further study, but the President's request happened to coincide with a special survey of the deficiencies and changes in recruit training then being made by Under Secretary of the Army Stephen Ailes.[22-52] Ailes offered to develop a special off-duty training program in line with the President's request. The program, to begin on a trial basis in October 1963, would also include evaluation counseling to determine if and when trainees should be assigned to technical schools.[22-53] Such a program represented a departure for the services, which since World War II had consistently rejected the idea frequently advanced by sociologists that the culturally, environmentally, and educationally deprived were denied equal opportunity when they were required to compete with the middle-class average.[22-54] Although no specific, measurable results were recorded from this educational experiment, the project was eventually blended into the Army's Special Training and Enlistment Program and finally into McNamara's Project 100,000.[22-55]

Beyond considering the competence of black servicemen, the Department of Defense had to face the possibility that discrimination was operating at least in some cases of assignment and promotion. Abolishing the use of racial designations on personnel records was one obvious way of limiting such discrimination, and throughout the mid-1960's the department sought to balance the conflicting demands for and against race labeling. Along with the integration of military units in the 1950's, the services had narrowed their multiple and cumbersome definition of races to a list of five groups. Even this list, a compromise drawn up by the Defense Department's Personnel Policy Board, was criticized. Reflecting the opinion of the civil rights forces, Evans declared that the definition of five races and twelve subcategories was scientifically inaccurate, statistically complicated, and racially offensive. He wanted a simple "white, nonwhite" listing of servicemen.[22-56] The subject continued to be discussed throughout the 1960's, the case finally going to the Director of the Bureau of the Budget, the ultimate authority on government forms. In August 1969 the director announced a uniform method for defining the races in federal statistics. The collectives "Negro and Other Races," "All Other Rates," or "All Other" would be acceptable to designate minorities; the terms "White," "Negro," and "Other Races" would be acceptable in distinguishing between the majority, principal minority, and other races.[22-57]