After World War II, President Truman was faced with a racially segregated military in which the country's military strength and ability was damaged by the discriminatory policies put in place to placate the cultural norms of American domestic society. A visit to the Truman Library shows the path President Truman followed to desegregating the military without relying on Congressional legislation.
Following World War II, President Harry S Truman faced a challenge more daunting than the foes of Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) face today. Not only was racial segregation entrenched in the legal system throughout the South, many aspects of segregation were also prevalent in other parts of the country through such measures as restrictive housing covenants, which limited home sales in particular neighborhoods to Caucasians.
How did President Truman overcome the prevailing custom and culture of post-War America? Truman first attempted to have the military solve the problem from within, but although the committee he appointed expressed the goal of eliminating inequality, it did not recommend immediately ending segregation. Knowing that he faced a difficult challenge:
February 2, 1948: President Truman announces in a special message to Congress on civil rights issues that he has "instructed the Secretary of Defense to take steps to have the remaining instances of discrimination in the armed services eliminated as rapidly as possible."
The actual order was not prepared until July 26, 1948, and implementation took much longer, with the Navy and Air Force being the first to have integration policies by January 1949, and the Army dragging its feet until the summer of 1950 (when black recruits began to replace white casualties in Korea).
President Obama faces much broader support from the general population for overturning DADT, as this ABC News/Washington Post poll from July 2008 indicates: 75% of all respondents believed openly gay individuals should be able to serve in the military; 62% of Evangelical Protestants agreed, as did 59% of conservative Republicans. There is majority support for removing DADT (even from some unexpected groups listed above) with veterans (50% in favor) being the only group to not have "majority" support -- although it could be argued that 50% from them is good enough. If military custom that mirrors our culture can be removed through an executive order (and much heavy lifting afterwards), Obama's task should be much easier. To those who would rightly point out that we are facing many difficulties right now, please consider the difficulties Truman faced at the close of the war, including the difficulty of trying to change American opinion as well as military custom.