Document created: 6 January 04
Air University Review, July-August
1972
Brigadier General
Daniel James, Jr.
Brigadier General Daniel (“Chappie”) James, Jr., USAF, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, recently addressed the class of the Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. Following his presentation, he invited questions from the audience, and we are happy to give our readers the benefit of excerpts from that question-and-answer period.
The Editor
Moderator: Ladies and gentlemen, General James indicated that he would field your questions on the full range of subject material, including race relations, public information, budgeting—the whole nine yards.
General James: We in Public Affairs—that is part of my business, as you know—face a “firing squad” every day, made up of representatives of all the major news media in the country, in our pressure chamber up there in our press briefing room in the Pentagon. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Daniel Z. Henkin is our boss. Every day at eleven o’clock Jerry Friedheim, the principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, is the primary briefer of the press, with me as backup. Since at least one of the three of us usually accompanies the Secretary or the Deputy Secretary of Defense anytime he hits the road, I find myself facing the press many, many times. We are supposed to be able to address almost any question that comes up about the Department of Defense, so I want to give you the same freedom the press has. I might not have all the answers, or my answer or solution might not be the same as yours, but that is what it is all about, too.
Incidentally, I do not make a profession of being black. I do not have time for that, but since I have been black for some 51 years now, I do have a good deal of experience. So, anything you want to talk about, fire away.
Q: Sir, could you talk a little bit about some of the race problems that you saw while you were over in Vietnam and what is being done about them?
A: Yes. This is a point on which I have received a lot of criticism from the black side of the house—the Black Caucus, to be specific. But I believe it is really unfortunate that, in the last three years when the services have made more progress than in the whole history of the armed forces, we are getting so much flak on racism in the services. To the wild charges of institutionalized racism in the services, I say, definitely, “Not so!” There are still individual practicing bigots in the services, and, to be sure, the services reflect the same problems that we have on Main Street, U.S.A.; but we have attacked them, and we have a systematic attack.
The Secretary of Defense has a real moral commitment to solving the problem, but we are never going to get it solved until all of you commanders have the same kind of moral commitment. By that I mean not just solving it because the regulations say there will be none of that but because in your hearts you know it is wrong. Now, we did not have enough of that moral attitude in Vietnam, or any of the other places. As a result, we have suffered accusations, the fraggings, and the hate spreaders. On the other hand, we have also been hurt by the guy who has been raising hell about everything from haircuts to the soul handshake—things one should not even bother about. Personally, I do not care how the troops shake hands, as long as they can fight, because that is what we were over there for.
Too often, however, when one of these incidents arises, the press is right there with every camera zeroed in and every mike on. It makes every newspaper in the world.
This kind of thing bothers the young black GI who is proudly out there leading his platoon through the jungle, destroying the enemy, and doing what he is supposed to do when it is necessary. So many of them come home with a stack of ribbons and their personal pride intact, but you seldom hear about them. Also, you do not hear about their white brothers who come along with them and respect them a lot more than they did any blacks before they went over and saw them perform. And maybe they saved each other’s life along the way. It is happening every day just as it happened when we were in Korea together and as it happened when we were over Hanoi together.
That is what I talk about to young lads all over the country: that there is not all that much mutual hate over there between our personnel. It is true, however, that any hate is too much. But we get them right from the ghetto and from Main Street, U.S.A. Johnny White Man comes in with his prejudices, his fears, and his private hates. He is confronted with the young black kid from the ghetto, and they go to Vietnam together still nursing a heartful of hurt and a fistful of hate. Too often they turn it on each other before they have a chance to find out that they do not hate each other after all, that it is not really necessary, and that we cannot afford it—which is more important. We have not solved it fully yet, but we are getting there.
As I said, we have a Secretary of Defense who is devoted to solving these problems. If we catch any practicing bigot, he is dead, professionally, in this service. We do not have any place for a commander who cannot be concerned about racism and have a commitment against it. Mr. Laird has stated there will be no more of that. And if we find them out, they will not command a latrine detail in this service anymore, anywhere, I can promise you. That is going to help solve it.
Q: Sir, the percentage of black officers in the Air Force today is still very low. What programs are in progress to increase the number of black officers in the Air Force? And, more particularly, what programs are in progress to increase the number of black pilots who will eventually move on to command positions?
A: I just finished talking to one of the young lads who is part of one of the programs being carried out. Captain Griffin is a member of the staff of the Air University here, and he has been delegated to lead the planning and the effort that his command is making to enhance minority recruiting. Minority recruiting is a big thing in all of the services now, and we have made a lot of progress in this area.
There are several developments, however, that make it a little more difficult for us. You see, despite what the militants are saying, there has been a lot of progress made quietly on the “outside” because the incumbent President, too, is concerned about racial and minority affairs. The Equal Opportunity and Equal Employer programs have taken hold in a lot of places. As you may know, a large manufacturer almost lost a fighter contract recently because he had not complied with some of the rules. He has jolly well complied now. But, you see, this company and others are hiring a lot of brilliant young blacks, who are the same kind we want.
In the Air Force and the flying arms of the Navy and Marines, we must have the good guy. We cannot take just anybody, and we are not going to lower our standards to the street level. We have got to keep our standards high, but also we must make sure there is a vehicle for the young black and other minority members to be able to compete for these positions. And that is what we are doing.
Captain Griffin, for example, is going around and speaking at many schools, both black and white—the predominantly black and the predominantly mixed—because it is a fact that the percentage of second lieutenant and first lieutenant blacks and other minorities is going down. The reason it is going down is that the opportunities for them outside the service—opportunities for them to get into medical school, law school, and other high-paying and respected career areas—have opened up recently. We in the Air Force are competing with those occupations now, and we must not give up. We have to go out there and point out our scholarship opportunities. We have some hard work to do.
Last week, we had some people from the Air Force Academy in Washington, and they were concerned about this problem. You see, the Air Force has said for so long, “Man, we didn’t throw the brick—we’re all right. See, we have Chappie James, a general!” But he is the only one. You know, my mother used to say there were two Negroes we could do without: the first one, and the only one. And I agree with her on her ideas of the first one to do this and the only one to do that. She said, “I’m looking forward to the day when so many of us will be doing so many noteworthy things that they will no longer be newsworthy.” That is what we are approaching today.
But we are not going that way fast enough. The Navy has made much significant progress along this line in the past year, and the Army is moving ahead, too. The number of blacks in the doolie class at the Air Force Academy is about 25 this year, and the Academy has made a commitment to improve. The Navy’s number in first-year class went up to 45, which was almost as many as they had in the whole Naval Academy last year.
Admiral Zumwalt explained on national TV that they got them because they went out and found them, recruited them. The Navy told them it needed them, and it offered them a $50,000-plus education in return for five years of their lives. You don’t find too many, no matter what color they are, who are going to turn that down. In fact, if someone is dumb enough to reject that offer, we probably could not use him anyway.
So we must go out and talk to them—we do not recruit just in the lily-white areas anymore. We go down to George Washington Carver High School, and we try to get that young black who has the ability but perhaps not the means. And we say, “We have an education here for you in the ROTC, or at the Air Force Academy, or at one of the other academies, if you want to go and can qualify. In return, here is what you have to do for us, which is really a part of your responsibility, anyway. And you can do it all at the same time, at substantial expense to the government.” That is how we try to get them in.
We are also trying to do away with the problems within service units. One of our methods is to utilize or recognize councils. Some might say we have councils coming out the ears. The commander has more help now than he has ever had in his life. He has the Human Relations Council, the Equal Opportunity Council, and representatives of the other side. He has them all, and they are all advising him. It can be quite a job to screen through this flood of advice, but when the final purified word comes out and is sent to his people, the commander had better make sure it has red-white-and-blue stamped all over it and that it amounts to equal opportunity for all. If not, he gets fired, and we put in someone else who will make sure all his people get an equal break. The more we do this and the more we show this kind of promise to that lad from George Washington Carver High School, the more he wants to come in and join us. That is our goal.
We have not reached that goal yet, but it will be your job to join hands and help push toward the goal. We are going to reach a lot of black folks, Puerto Ricans, and poor white folks who have not had a chance before, and we are going to get them in because we find these people all have the same kind of heart and the same kind of concern for this country. And we want them all.
Q: General, would you discuss the effectiveness of the DOD Domestic Action Council and its effect on race problems in the local areas.
A: Domestic Action is one of the best things we have going for us these days. We have a big program in Memphis, some programs in Mississippi, in Alabama, and in Massachusetts. My old base, Otis Air Force Base, takes a whole bunch of kids from the ghetto and brings them in during the summer. They not only let them swim and have campfires but they also teach them a little something about getting along with each other.
We also have the Race Relations Institute, just opened at Patrick, which is going to work very closely with these people. They are planning to have some seminars and courses during the summer which they intend to offer to nonmilitary people in order to help attack these problems I have talked about—the heartful of hurt and the fistful of hate that come to us from Ghetto, U.S.A. We are trying to reach these young people early, before their minds have been closed—both the black ones and the white ones—and I assure you the problem is on both sides. You cannot be fair or candid without recognizing that fact, so we are putting a lot of emphasis on our Domestic Action programs.
Our image, as you know, has been distorted by the Rubins and the Dellingers and all these other people who for the sake of “peace” have stepped on the pride and dignity of the armed services. They have thrown a little mud on your uniform and mine. Our reaction cannot be anger and name-calling; it must be through programs like Domestic Action.
We must go out and talk to “Reverend Jones” and “Sister Smith,” and we have to get them to talk about it from the pulpits, where they have the ear of the people. We must let them know that we are not a bunch of killers. When we find someone within our numbers who has gone astray and tarnished the uniform a bit, we must show we are big enough to take action against him.
We must try to make them understand that nobody hates war worse than warriors, because, hell, we are the ones who get shot at. Nothing is better for the warrior than peacetime on the post and beer call on Friday night. But, when necessary, we have to fight the enemy out there, else, while we shout freedom, we might not have the place to be free in. And this is my place, my country, right here; this is what I fight for. This is what we have to tell them in the ghetto, in the streets.
That is what Domestic Action does. It is a big program and has a lot of money in it. The man at the Defense Department level is Earl Brown. He, too, has a bit of experience at being black, although a little less than I have. Incidentally, he is a hell of a fighter pilot. Earl is really in there doing some great things. We also have some white people in there who are doing fine things. I do not know all the minute details about each of the programs, but I invite you when you come to the Pentagon to go up on the fourth floor and talk to them. They will be out here in the field to talk to you, too.
You know, I was just talking about Domestic Action with your Commandant, General Loving. I understand you had a Race Seminar here and did not have Jesse Jackson and did not have Roy Wilkins. You had better listen to those people, too. You see, if you fail to listen to them, someday you may have to listen to others like Stokely and Eldridge—and I do not believe you would like what they would say. Furthermore, they would not take the time to journey here and talk to you, but Roy Wilkins will, and so would Jesse Jackson. It is possible you might not like all they say, either, but they would tell it like it is.
That is what we are doing in Domestic Action: we are telling it like it is and attacking it where it is.
Q: Sir, you mentioned the Domestic Action Program, but what else is the Department of Defense doing—or what do you think should be done—to improve the declining military image in the United States today?
A: O.K. I did touch on that in the middle of my more formal talk, and I did it somewhat jokingly. But it is not a joke. It is a very serious proposition. It is a question of how much is enough and how far we should swing the pendulum before we start the other way.
Basically, we are trying to strike a balance between discipline and listening to our young, dissatisfied people. I hear so much about listening to the young, and for this purpose the commander has more help now than he has ever had. Unfortunately, a lot of it he does not need. But we must make sure we are listening to all sides in order to be able to come up with the right answers.
Now, I do think—and we all think—that we may have gone a little bit too far in our search for answers by acceding to demands of people in the service who seem to want this to be like a country club. This is not a country club. We had a sign at our wing in Thailand which read, “The Mission of the Air Force is to Fly and Fight-And Don’t You Forget It!” The Chief of Staff keeps that motto hanging on his door.
Boiled down, that is the mission of all the armed services of the United States of America. Of course, we would like to see the day when we could beat those swords into plowshares, but I have yet to see many shiny new plowshares. So we must maintain a viable fighting force. To do that, we have to have discipline.
I think in the regrouping that is going to take place after this war—and we are winding it down—we are going to take all these people who have not conformed to the discipline that is a must in the services and show them to the gate. To some degree, we are doing that right now. They fail to do us any good in here, and they corrupt the minds of the young people who come in to us wanting to accomplish the mission.
With these remarks behind me, I will get back to part of the answer to your question, sir. What is wrong, in my mind, is that we have lacked the facing up to responsibility and accepting the challenge of the young, mad minorities. I would include in this group the very antieverything elements, some of whom came into the service mad about the draft and hating us deeply. For the most part, these are young, articulate people who are going out and gaining converts from among the others who came in to do their duty, serve their time well, and get out.
This challenge has not been picked up by the young—or not so young—articulate blacks at our staff level, higher NCO level, or young officer level who possess the kind of credibility that the young people would accept. This is part of what I am talking about.
The staff sergeant probably has a family and does not go to the NCO Club or Service Club very much. When he finishes work in the afternoon, he goes home. He might stop a few minutes at beer call on his way home on Friday, but most of the time he is home. So he is not at hand when angry words are flung back and forth.
Well, we are getting some of these people back in the barracks, getting them to make sure they go over to the barracks and Service Club and establish some kind of rapport with these young people. We are beginning to rely on our intermediate-level leaders with guts enough to stand and say, “Look, man, assess progress. Then you will find you don’t have as much to be bitter about as you think you do.”
The minorities have made a lot of progress in many areas. We must point that out to our young people because most of the angry young blacks have little or no idea how bad the black situation used to be or how much it has improved. I am not saying they do not have the right to raise hell about the things that are still wrong, but I am saying that they still have the responsibility to contribute to the solution and try to solve the problems.
The same can be said about the antiwar guy who wants to come in here and in my uniform stand up and hold a meeting in my theater to tell these guys why they should hate my Air Force. I say “Hell, no!” He can go down to the coffeehouse off base, or he can address his grievances to me, or I can sit and talk with him about it and we can get into a dialogue. But for him to have a one-way pep rally for the disruption of the normal processes of the military, for him to want to rewrite our procedures, NO! I have a thing right here in my briefcase in which one of these guys testified before the Black Caucus last week. One of the things he wanted was liberalization of the Manual for Courts-Martial and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, with special emphasis on—get this—on drugs and homosexuality.
No, we are not going that route, and they have got to know it. But I think there are still, as the Marines say, enough good men.
Well, I think the policy of the Air Force is right down that same line. We still think there are enough young stalwarts out there so that, if we show them what the Air Force really is, if we show them what kind of leadership ours really is, and if we make ourselves examples of that leadership, we can get the nucleus to stamp out the weed. Unfortunately, we do have some bad guys, but we also have the required leadership, some of it right here at Air Command and Staff College and over at the Air War College, where I spoke a few weeks ago.
We have to be understanding but firm. For example, Sandy Vandenberg met me the other day at ATC at Randolph when I flew in there. He has a Human Relations Council, and they get together and talk, or rap, about what is wrong: equal opportunities, the blacks and whites, the militants, and the antiwar guys. These groups have been asking for more and more. First, they wanted to hold the meetings during duty hours. O.K., he went along with that. Then, they came in the other day, he told me, and said, “We don’t want to wear our uniform to this thing. We want to come in civilian clothes.”
Sandy asked me what I would say, and I told him I would say, “Hell, no!” They should wear the uniform. After all, the problem happens in the uniform.”
We never started out to be what Main Street, U.S.A. or Ghetto, U.S.A. is. We are the military. Without the discipline that goes with it, we become a mob. Now, hear me right: There are things that are wrong. There has been some neglect—more in the past, less in the present, and there should be none in the future. There are still racial problems and drug problems. There are still some things on which we can listen to the young people. For example, we can let them grow their hair a little longer and get some bigger hats.
There are other simple things we can do, like keeping cool when a man shakes another man’s thumb and they beat each other’s elbows, arms, and thighs, doing the “soul shake.” I do not care, as long as that man is standing straight and tall when I call my formation. I do not care, as long as when I wall, by he throws me a “Good morning, sir” and salutes, and I return the courtesy. We are not going to back away from that. I do not care, as long as he takes direction when I give it, without my having to explain to him why. I do not have time for that over Hanoi at 30,000 feet. He had better learn that when he is back at the post.
In short, I believe we can accomplish both tasks: maintain discipline and get good men. I say we still have enough good men in this country who will be receptive to leadership and will respect us more for drawing a firm line and hewing to it. We must correct the things that are wrong, but we cannot allow ourselves to fall on our tails while we do it. That is my answer.
Q: General, I have heard the concept of the volunteer army criticized because people say it will consist of white officers leading predominantly black troops. Would you comment on that, please?
A: O.K. They do not have to worry about that in Hometown, U.S.A. You are right, there are a lot of people who say that if we go to an all-volunteer force we will have an all-black army, an all-Mexican army, an all-Puerto Rican army, or an all-poor-white-folks army. They should not worry about that for the reason I gave you a little while ago. There are so many opportunities for all these people now that we are having just as much—if not more—trouble in recruiting the black who has the talent we need as we do in recruiting the white. So we are just not getting them that fast. We have not lowered our standards to recruit in any of these categories, and we are not going to. But what are we going to do to attract and hold good men, and what are we doing right now in the services?
For one thing, we are working to better attune career progression in the service between the whites and the minorities. It is not easy. Picture two young lads, a black from a disadvantaged neighborhood and a white fellow from a high-rent district who possesses a lot of skills the black guy does not have. Start them out at the same time, and what do you say to the black lad at promotion time? “Sorry, son, you failed to make your stripe because you do not have the education that the white guy has”?
Well, we are trying to do something about it. We have all sorts of Headstart programs. The Navy has made a lot of progress here, and the other services are progressing also. They are holding conferences right now to devise additional ways to bring that disadvantaged lad up to the level of his contemporary. He might progress at a slower rate, but he is going to be constantly gaining as he goes.
Now, financially speaking, you cannot ever pay a man what it is worth to fight for his country, especially somebody who has done it and knows what it’s all about. But we feel we can develop the kind of responsibility in enough of our youth, backed up by some fringe benefits, like better housing, educational opportunities, and a good start when they return to civilian life, that both blacks and whites are going to be interested. And I believe we can do this while keeping our standards on the same high plateau. Then we will be able to maintain the same mix that we have now.
This idea of a mixture is one reason we do not want to rely solely on the military academies for officers. We must maintain the ROTC program so that we can keep the kind of integrated mix of races, religions, social strata, and everything else that makes it a truly democratic American military force—democratic to the point that we set. Realistically, that cannot be too permissive or it would not be worth anything as a fighting force.
In short, we must show our attractiveness to the young men that we want. Then we will get the mixture we want. We do not worry about what percent of us is going to be black or white; it will seek its own level. However, the resultant force will not be all black or all white or all Mexican or all Puerto Rican. Even if it were, I will tell you frankly—and I do not care what the papers say about dissension and all that—if they were the kind of people that the majority of blacks, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans whom I know in this service are, we would not have a bad army anyway. They love their country just like you and I do.
Q: Sir, in grappling with the personal problems of management, we have looked at a model of General Maloy’s efforts over in Korea. Without asking you to evaluate that personally, I would like to ask you for an Air Staff position on that example and if anything is being done to follow it up?
A: Yes, there is, at the Defense Department level. You know, one of the first things Mr. Laird told me when I came on board was to remember that my suit was purple-that I had to be concerned with all the services, across the board. Of course, when you wear this blue suit as long as I have and love it as I do, it is not easy to forget the color all of the time.
Nevertheless, we assimilate all the information from the Maloy effort, from General Simler’s interracial fact-finding group in Air Training Command, and similar investigations, like those directed by General Catton in Military Airlift Command. Incidentally, back to Public Affairs, some writers who published stories on these reports evidently found what was wrong more newsworthy than the action taken to set it right. And, indeed, action is being taken, based on these and other reports and recommendations.
For example, just taking their seats is a new team under a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Equal Opportunity. The number one man is Don Miller, who comes to us from the Vice Presidency at Seatrain Corporation. The number two man is Curt Smothers. Curt is the young black captain, Army type, whom many of you may have seen on one of the CBS “Sixty Minutes” programs. In one particular segment, they were taking the Army to task about racism in Germany. Curt was the very articulate black lad who pointed out the things that were wrong and where Army justice had fallen short of the mark. He was quite critical of some of these things, but he was very factual in what he said.
Mike Wallace, who was conducting the interview, said, “Captain, you are being very candid here and very open with your answers. Aren’t you afraid the Army will take some action against you?” Curt’s reply went like this: “Well, I’m sure the Army can if it wants to. But I would be very surprised if they did—and very disappointed if they did—because, first of all, I am a legal officer and I’m concerned about military justice. And I wouldn’t be here talking to you about these things if I had gotten the proper ear back there in the caserne. I think I’m doing the proper thing. Now, I might be stepping on some policies, and, if in fact I am, then maybe I should be called down. I think the Army is bigger than that, but if not, so be it.”
He was right. The Secretary of Defense was bigger than that. They brought him up and made him an Assistant to the General Counsel in the Pentagon. Since that time, a year ago, he has been up there helping Mr. Buzhardt deal with some of these things. Now he is going off active duty status and is going to be a civilian—27 years old and a GS-15—that is quite a jump! Curt is going to be up there trying to solve those things, you see. That is what is happening in this so-called “racist” Defense Department.
Now, I know General Maloy very well. One of the things that hurts Maloy and others like him is to have an incident occur in his command while he is making headway in his programs. One of those happened. Some black guys who still figured they ‘could not wait for his program to work went out and took over some joint downtown in which they had been treated unfairly and tore it apart. Sure enough, that story was all over the front page, while not enough people heard about General Maloy’s positive program. Once more, too many people did not get the whole story, but we have to win in spite of these breaks. Those are some of the problems we face.
Look at the efforts of Army General Mike Davison, the new commander of all Army forces in Europe. He has made tremendous progress. Now, a few weeks ago, the media gave quite a bit of coverage to his conference on race problems, which was held at Berchtes-gaden. At one point in the conference, while they were discussing how many whites had been assaulted by blacks in those roving bands that we are having trouble with—over there and over here, too—General Davison said, “But you’ve only given me part of it. We’ve sat here and talked about it for fifteen minutes, yet no one has said how many blacks have been assaulted by whites. That’s the kind of imbalance we’ve got to get away from before we can begin to address the problem.” And they got along with that topic, too.
What we in DOD are doing is the result of what Davison discovers over there, what Maloy finds in Korea, what the commander of Fort Benning finds over here, and the commander at Pendleton, along with what the Black Caucus alleges, and others.
We are getting it all up there and putting the answers to it. And I think we are going to find them; I know we are!
Q: General, you have commented on the number of councils available today to the commanders, but I would like to address this specifically to unit or squadron commanders. Do we need all these bureaucracies, or do we perhaps, in your own view, need dedicated and motivated squadron commanders who have been educated specifically in race relations and human behavior?
A: We need both. But the way we get to the latter is by having the former. I have poked, with some fun and extraneous comment, at the number of societies that we have; but this is called listening to all sides. Maybe the only way we can be sure we get all views is to have all these councils and be responsive to the things within reason that they are talking about.
We have to have commanders who are influenced by the Race Relations Institute, by the councils, by all of this information—and by our response to it. This way a commander learns a lot about the races, the problems, their feelings, and, probably, quite a bit about himself. And he starts to change, you see. Then we have a commander who obeys the regulation and makes sure it works, because he has the only thing that is going to solve it all: a moral commitment to do it because it is right. When that is done, we can dissolve all the councils and go back from “command by committee” to the single commander system.
Thank you very much.
Brigadier General Daniel James, Jr. (B.S., Tuskegee Institute) is Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs). Commissioned in 1943, he served with fighter units and in the Korean War flew 101 combat missions. Other assignments include Commander, 60th Fighter Interceptor Squadron; Deputy Commander/Operations, 81st Fighter Wing, England; DC/O, 4453d Combat Training Wing; Vice Commander, 8th Tactical Fighter Wing, Thailand; and Commander 7272d Flying Training Wing, Libya. He is a graduate of Air Command and Staff College and has been nominated and confirmed for promotion to major general.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this
document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression,
academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official
position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air
Force or the Air University.
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