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Gold9472
12-31-2005, 10:24 PM
Britain allowed US army apartheid

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1965608,00.html

1/6/2006

THE government allowed the racial segregation of American troops in Britain during the second world war, writes Gareth Walsh.

Newly declassified documents show Sir Winston Churchill warned against interfering with the US army’s policy of separating black GIs from white units and housing them in their own barracks.

“The views of the US army must be considered,” Churchill said at a cabinet meeting in October 1942. “Nothing (is) to stand between (a) US officer and his troops. We mustn’t interfere.” President Truman ended segregation in the army in 1948.

Handwritten notes of the meeting, taken by Sir Norman Brook, the deputy cabinet secretary, show that ministers stopped the Americans from importing “colour bars” to British canteens, and civilian facilities such as cinemas and pubs. Segregation meant many black soldiers saw little frontline action and thus had time to mingle with British civilians.

The Home Office representative — believed to be Herbert Morrison, the home secretary — said there would be no question of “British police enforcing their (American) rules for them”.

Viscount Cranborne warned that if Britain “can be said to have advocated (a) ‘colour bar’, all the coloured people here (from) our Empire will go back discontented and preach disaffection there”.

Brook’s notes also show early attempts at political correctness. Ministers were told they should refer to black GIs as “American negroes” instead of “coloured”.