Harry Truman, Barack Obama, And The Mythic Executive Order

http://blog.reidreport.com/2009/10/harry-truman-barack-obama-and-the-mythic-executive-order/

I just found this article looking for the specific circumstances of the Truman executive order that desegregated the military. The truth is a bit more complicated, and though I still believe Obama could be doing more on this front, something Joy Reid does point out, the "stroke of the pen" language I've used here isn't actually true.



Lots, lots more at the link. It's one of the best defenses of Obama's track to repeal DADT that I've read.

ETA: And I thought I would add that personally I know that ending DADT isn't going to be an overnight thing, any more that desegregation was or getting out of Iraq would be. But the process needs to get started and keep moving.

(I assume that since this has nothing to do w/ 9/11 you won't mind my responding and agreeing.)

Truman issued his order because he was trying to get African American votes at the last minute as the election approached.

The order had almost no effect. The military basically said, "no," they weren't going to desegregate. The military was divided, with the manpower and training specialists arguing for desegregation in the report you mention, but the joint chiefs and operational officers objecting.

Having the military tell a president "no" is not a good thing for the tradition of civilian control of the military. Moreover, the person who said "no" was the tremendously popular Omar Bradley, the "GI General" of WWII (at the time iirc chairman of the joint chiefs of secretary of the Army), who was not personally prejudiced, and had been much loved by black WWII troops, but Bradley argued that the Army would desegregate when American society was desegregated. They were able to get away with saying "no" because Truman's order was so vaguely worded anyway. It did not actually say the Army had to desegregate; only that African American soldiers had to be given "equal opportunity," which the Army interpreted as equality within the context of "separate but equal" along the lines of civilian society.

The North Koreans did more to desegregate the Army than any other force. When the Korean war started, forward battalions were decimated, and in the chaos, the US Army sent black replacement troops from segregated units to decimated white units. Even then, they tried to keep strict bureaucratic segregation of who was assigned to what units on a permanent or temporary basis. Eventually it proved cumbersome, and in the heat of battle, the Army was desegregated.

During the Truman years, the armed services were not segregated by law. They were segregated by directives issued by the Army, Navy, and Air Force Secretaries/departments. Truman did not have to have Congress do anything to change the status of AM troops in the armed services. All he had to do as C-in-C was issue the order. DADT is law established by Congress and signed by the President. To change it permantely, Congress must act and the President has to sign the legislation. President Obama has authority to suspend discharges under DADT. He has chosen not do do so.