Posted on 10/24/2004 4:18:21 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
MONTGOMERY -- In the weeks before Gov. George Wallace's attempt to block enrollment of two black students at the University of Alabama, the Kennedy administration was poised to send more than 20,000 troops into Alabama if resistance to integration had become more violent, according to declassified documents and interviews with former military and civilian sources.
The contingency plan was drawn up after a University of Mississippi desegregation riot in 1962 and in advance of Wallace's June 1963 stand in the schoolhouse door at Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Dubbed Operation Palm Tree, the plan is outlined in 160 pages of documents obtained from the National Archives under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents detail the number of troops that would have been mobilized, their instructions on use of force, maps showing distances to target areas and even a fill-in-the-blank news release to announce the military operation.
"Civil disturbances beyond the capability of local and State civil authorities to handle are a strong possibility," says an operation plan dated May 31, 1963.
John Seigenthaler, an aide to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in 1961 and 1962, said in a recent telephone interview that the plan, which was never executed, was a direct result of "a major foul up" and extended delays in getting troops to the University of Mississippi riot in 1962.
The attorney general, Seigenthaler said, was determined not to let that happen again.
At that time, Alabama was known for explosive white opposition to integration. A now-declassified military summary of the situation begins, "As of 30 May 1963, the racial situation in Birmingham ... remains relatively quiet." The paragraph ends, "although sporadic bomb threats continue to be received, no actual bombings have been reported since 11 May 1963."
Richard Bene, then an enlisted man at Fort Campbell, Ky., and now a barber in Montgomery, Ala., remembers the era as "the time I almost got to invade Alabama."
The Ole Miss riot started at 7 p.m. on Sept. 30, 1962, and, when it was over, 79 of 127 U.S. deputy marshals were wounded, according to a historical account on the Justice Department's Web site. A company of military police got there shortly before sunrise the next morning, but the Web site says that in the final toll, two people were killed and 166 wounded, including the deputy marshals and others.
"When the University of Alabama came," Seigenthaler said regarding Wallace's stand, "they (administration officials) made absolutely certain that they were on go and ready to go and would go.
"My recollection is that the commitment to have troops ready for Alabama was that in the case that there was a riot, there would be troops immediately available."
He added, "Whether it was overkill, I don't know. I think that it was an effort to make sure you got some troops there when they were needed, if you needed them."
Nicholas Katzenbach, who was deputy attorney general at the time, said in a telephone interview, "They probably were about nine times over-prepared" to avoid a repeat of the Ole Miss problems.
President Kennedy was reluctant to use federal troops in such situations because he remembered from his Senate days the criticism of President Eisenhower over that type of action in Little Rock, Ark., according to J. Mills Thornton III, a University of Michigan history professor and Montgomery native.
The delays at Oxford, "began changing Kennedy's mind," Thornton said.
Katzenbach said there had been concern in the administration that the presence of federal troops could spark a riot in Alabama. "If you put troops in," he asserted, "you have the whole problem of how the hell do you get them out."
The decision to use troops later during the March 1965 Selma voting rights march was easy, he added, because Wallace refused to pay to protect the marchers: "He asked for the troops."
Ed Guthman, Justice Department press secretary when he went to Tuscaloosa for the 1963 integration showdown with Wallace, said that a major operational plan "is counter to my recollection."
He said it took four hours to get troops the 60 miles from Memphis, Tenn., to Oxford, Miss., in 1962. "There was a combat team sitting at Fort Benning (Ga.) in helicopters, and if they were needed at Alabama, they would get there a hell of a lot quicker," said Guthman, who now teaches investigative reporting at the University of Southern California.
Retired Col. David Hackworth, who was in charge of logistics for the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based Task Force Cassidy, recalled in e-mail correspondence the "plans to use city stadiums as containment areas for the unruly." He said the units on alert reported directly to the Department of the Army and were closely monitored by Attorney General Kennedy.
Retired Col. Joe Wilson, then a major in charge of the task force's operations and plans, remembered "a real sensitive operation. The potential of U.S. troops confronting U.S. civilians was very closely watched."
Another retired officer, Col. F.G. "Gil" Stephenson, was a major and assistant plans officer with the 2nd Infantry Division, based at Fort Benning. It sent units to Oxford in 1962 for the riots and later to Fort McClellan in Anniston, Ala., in preparation for a possible action in Alabama. He said the situation was "very tense," and "it wouldn't have taken a hell of a lot more" for the plans to have proceeded.
Wilson, now retired in San Antonio, said he believes "had there been actual confrontation between ... whites and blacks that put U.S. citizens in jeopardy," the plan would have been implemented.
While the plan was called Operation Palm Tree, the declassified documents do not explain the origin of the name. Subordinate parts were named after generals, such as Task Force Cassidy, named for Wilson and Stephenson's commanding general at Fort Campbell, Brig. Gen. Patrick Cassidy. That task force had a minimum strength of 5,891, similar to the size of three other task forces that were part of the operation.
The documents show that a total of 23,400 troops would have been involved. By comparison, Eisenhower had sent 1,000 troops to Little Rock to enforce school desegregation in September 1957.
"They wouldn't have sent 23,000 troops in there at once," said Seigenthaler, who had worked for Robert Kennedy before 1963.
A contingent from Fort Campbell went to Fort McClellan to prepare to put the plan into action, Wilson recalled.
Military documents describe a federal judge's refusal to de lay the admission of black students to University of Alabama campuses in Tuscaloosa and Huntsville, followed by an outline of Wallace's plan to prevent their enrollment.
The papers summarize: "There are three main groups in the objective areas that could be expected to be most active in opposing friendly forces: Knights of the KKK, The National States Rights Party, and the Volunteers for Alabama and Wallace."
Although none of the groups was credited with gathering more than 300 people, the memo adds that "inactive elements, splinter groups and sympathizers could increase the size of these elements."
Retired Col. Wilson recalls having gone to Little Rock as an observer and to Selma, site of civil rights demonstrations, to perform reconnaissance.
Asked what precedents existed, other than perhaps Mississippi and Arkansas, retired Col. Stephenson said: "I think there were not any, and that's the problem. What we were, a combat division ... doing things we never anticipated getting involved in. ... We were playing it by ear, almost all the way. That means from the division commander on down."
Now retired in Midland, Ga., Stephenson remembered Katzenbach -- "a rumpled-looking fellow" -- at "a discussion on that subject in Birmingham." He said the discussion "involved the legal ramifications and constitutional basis."
Katzenbach said the justification was "the statute which says that you can use troops when a state is unwilling or unable to enforce the law ... maintain peace and order."
As for precedents beyond Little Rock and Oxford, "that was about all you had. I can't think what else you could have."
One of the documents describing the 1963 situation in Alabama says, "Local hostile forces are considered to have the capability of ... causing possible disruption of communications, intercepting friendly radio nets, and tapping friendly wire circuits."
If the plan had been implemented, a May 12 message says, the priority on application of force would have been as follows:
"Unloaded rifles with bayonet fixed with scabbard on bayonet.
"Unloaded rifles with bare bayonet fixed.
"Tear gas (CS and CN)."
CS, o-cholorobenzylidene malononitrile, is said to be a stronger tear gas, while CN, chloroacetophenone is longer-lasting.
"Loaded rifles with bare bayonet fixed."
Wilson remembered, "The control of ammunition was a major concern."
Operation Palm Tree called for troops to move into Birmingham, Tuscaloosa and Huntsville.
A proposed government news release, according to a June 4, 1963, document, would have stated:
"The Department of Defense at (time) today, ordered the Army to move a )))))-man task force to ))))))))))))))))), prepared to assist Federal marshals to enforce Federal court orders in )))))))))))) if the President decides to use Federal troops for that purpose.
"In addition, the ))))) Engineer Battalion (Reinforced), from )))))), has been ordered to provide logistical support ...
"Commander of the task force is ...
"In the event the President orders the Army to assist the Federal Marshals in enforcing the court orders ....
"The court orders involved are as follows ..."
The documents included Operation Plan 3-63, dated June 6, 1963, with a drawing of a palm tree on the cover. It orders:
"Weapons other than individual arms will not be utilized in this operation nor displayed during movement to objective areas.
"Equipment will accompany units when they depart Field Training Sites. Items of heavy equipment, i.e. artillery pieces, will be dropped en route at appropriate points within the State of Alabama without major deviation from shortest route to objective areas."
Looking back more than 40 years, Wilson said, "Bobby Kennedy was running the show" and "it was a puzzling time in the Army's history."
Stephenson recalled "going night and day on three or four hours of sleep a night. And as I recall, we must have been up there around two weeks, at least two weeks, at Fort McClellan. Exactly how long we were there, and when we came back, that is beyond my recollection."
About the author: Coke Ellington is a longtime former newspaperman in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, with a career dating to 1962. After 13 years at the Montgomery Advertiser, he began teaching journalism at Alabama State University in Montgomery seven years ago.
When Rumsfeld has been asked about "plans" to do this or that, he has answered, "That is what we do - we (DOD) make plans."
Nothing in the article surprises me.
Funny how it was the democratic party that opposed intergration/civil rights. Now they are the psuedo champions of looking out for the minorites? The passage of the civil rights law was essential for a free America. Many people both black and white were beneficiaries of this law. I think now we need to mobilze our forces to disrupt the (democratic/terrorists) "stop the republican vote" operation. Plans need to be drawn up to invade Ma. and take two communists senators (SINO) into custody. Jfk, the hero of PT 109 , caught in half by a Japanese destroyer, relieved of duty while in the naval intelligience for having an affair with an east german spy, the hero of the bay of pigs fiasco, for not supporting and leaving those anti-fidel mercs to get either killed or captured by Fidel's army. Kennedy lied abouth this event and many more. We had a alleged federal budget surplus supposedly when jfk was in office? Damn, where was our tax incentive rebate? President Bush gave us one so what happened to that money under kennedy? I would imagine some probably went for his numerous tryst with those so called beauties. The kennedy's a memory, which should have faded long ago and and a facade of the real truth. Bush/Cheney 2004 (An Alabamian)
"Nothing in the article surprises me."
What surprses me even less is how journalist make such lazy historians.
Just off the top of my head, I know the Little Rock situation was rather tense for awhile. Governor Orval Faubus meant to fight out with the federal troops using the state militia, the Arkansas National Guard. The Guard, to its credit, refused to go along and accepted an activation order from Eisenhower.
In Mississippi the National Guard was called into active service as Militia of the United States to insure the peace.
In Tennessee, under a state activation, the National Guard formed a protective corridor through which children passed on their way to school.
Bottom line is the "de-classified" contingency plan is a "ho-hum" . . . now. I'm sure others with some memory of this era can toss in other bits of their state's military story.
When you have in 1957 a state governor meaning to use the state militia to wage war against the 101st Airborne, rather than integrate under a Supreme Court order, I think a bit of continency planning is called for. Yep, those were some tense times . . .
I don't know about the involuntary psychiatric examination, but I believe everything else you wrote to be absolutely true. Walker was a strange bird.
Edwin Walker also was the 101st Airborne Division commander charged by Eisenhower to ensure Governor Faubus submitted to the Supreme Court's integration order. He sure as heck didn't like it, I'm sure, but he would have carried out his orders had the Arkansas National Guard not made the right choice.
A run for Congress (John Bircher?), gun running, public restroom arrest . . . sounds familiar. Like I said, Walker was a strange bird . . .
Oh my! If Federal soldiers were perceived to be invading Alabama, all hell would have broken out. Clearly, the Federals would have "won," but unguarded Federal buildings would have been burned and riots would have spread over the region including much more than Alabama. Like today, it was a powder keg just waiting for a spark. Actually, today things are more serious. Fifty years ago, it was all about southern culture, pride and the hypocritical northern arrogance. Today, it is a world wide liberal revolution against the United States as an independent country. Many people know that the liberals control, the media and universities - just like Eugene McCarthy warned. They know that 50 years of one-sided liberal propaganda and brainwashing have pitted the "haves" against the "have knots" in a siege of hate. I fear that election fraud could be the spark that sets off much more than a regional powder keg. It is much easier to take up arms against George Soros, the French and the Germans on American soil, than it was to battle American Troops in America.
Oh my! If Federal soldiers were perceived to be invading Alabama, all hell would have broken out. Clearly, the Federals would have "won," but unguarded Federal buildings would have been burned and riots would have spread over the region including much more than Alabama. Like today, it was a powder keg just waiting for a spark. Actually, today things are more serious. Fifty years ago, it was all about southern culture, pride and the hypocritical northern arrogance. Today, it is a world wide liberal revolution against the United States as an independent country. Many people know that the liberals control, the media and universities - just like Eugene McCarthy warned. They know that 50 years of one-sided liberal propaganda and brainwashing have pitted the "haves" against the "have knots" in a siege of hate. I fear that election fraud could be the spark that sets off much more than a regional powder keg. It is much easier to take up arms against George Soros, the French and the Germans on American soil, than it was to battle American Troops in America.
"Many people know that the liberals control, the media and universities - just like Eugene McCarthy warned."
Eugene or Joseph?
Ha! What a blunder on my part. Joseph of course!
Lee Harvey Oswald is believed to have taken a shot at General Walker's home in Dallas a little while before he assassinated Kennedy. This was during Oswald's "Fair play for Cuba" days.
I had not heard about Walker commanding the 101st, so I went looking. You may have him confused with someone else.
http://www.kentuckynewera.com/hometown/fort/command.htm
Maj. Gen. William C. Lee (Aug. 42-Feb. 44)
Maj. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor (March 44-Aug. 45)
Brig. Gen. William N. Gillmore (Aug. 45-Sept. 45)
Brig. Gen. Gerald St. C. Mickle (Sept. 45-Oct. 45)
Brig. Gen. Stuart Cutler (Oct. 45-Nov. 45)
Maj. Gen. Thomas L. Sherburne Jr. (May 56-March 58)
Maj. Gen. William C. Westmoreland* (April 58-June 60)
Maj. Gen. Ben Harrell (June 60-July 61)
Maj. Gen. C.W.G. Rich (July 61-Feb. 63)
Maj. Gen. Harry H. Critz (Feb. 63-March 64)
Maj. Gen. Beverly E. Powell (March 64-March 66)
Maj. Gen. Ben Sternberg (March 66-July 67)
Maj. Gen. Olinto M. Barsanti (July 67-July 68)
Maj. Gen. Melvin Zais (July 68-May 69)
Maj. Gen. John M. Wright (May 69-May 70)
Maj. Gen. John J. Hennessey (May 70-Feb. 71)
Maj. Gen. Thomas M. Tarpley (Feb. 71-April 72)
Maj. Gen. John H. Cushman (April 72-Aug. 73)
Maj. Gen. Sidney B. Berry (Aug. 73-July 74)
Maj. Gen. John W. McEnery (Aug. 74-Feb. 76)
Maj. Gen. John A. Wickham Jr.* (March 76-March 78)
Maj. Gen. John N. Brandenburg (March 78-June 80)
Maj. Gen. Jack V. Mackmull (June 80-Aug. 81)
Maj. Gen. Charles W. Bagnal (Aug. 81-Aug. 83)
Maj. Gen. James E. Thompson (Aug. 83-June 85)
Maj. Gen. Burton D. Patrick (June 85-May 87)
Maj. Gen. Teddy G. Allen (May 87- Aug. 89)
Maj. Gen. John Miller (Aug. 89-Oct. 90)
Maj. Gen. J.H. Binford Peay III (Oct. 90-June 93)
Maj. Gen. John M. Keane (June 93-Feb. 96)
Maj. Gen. William F. "Buck" Kernan (Feb. 96-Feb. 98)
Maj. Gen. Robert T. Clark (Feb. 98-June 2000)
Maj. Gen. Richard A. Cody (June 2000 - July 02)
Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus (July 02 - Present)
The Democrats have hijacked the "civil rights" issue, when
in reality the Republicans need to be correcting the
rewritten history on this matter.
I did, more or less. Much thanks.
A quick google search brought up this old AP story at http://www.ardemgaz.com/prev/central/central0927f.html
Secretary of Defense Wilson, asked today how long the Army troops will remain in Little Rock said:
"I hope not long, but nobody can tell."
It was the first time Wilson has seen newsmen since he signed the order putting into effect President Eisenhower's decision to federalize the Arkansas National Guard and to send Army regulars to the scene.
Wilson said Maj. Gen. Edwin Walker, commander of the emergency force in Little Rock, could relieve the regular troops patrolling the high school area and replace them with guardsmen, but that Walker would have to get specific word from Washington before sending the 101st Airborne Division battle group back to their home post at Ft. Campbell, Ky.
I do love the way folks collaborate here to nudge information back on course. But, to tell you the truth, till you showed me the list, I did think Walker commanded the 101st., I suppose his role as overall commander, and time, confused the issue. Thanks.
No, thank you. I didn't know Walker had anything to do with the troubles in Arkansas during that earlier period.
Someone needs to write a book about Walker.
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