The Honor Code Is Cracking.

There are cracks in the honor Code. The Air Force Academy's honor system appears to be losing its hold on the nation's future officers.

Can honor be taught? Can you test for it? Can you detect when it's been forsaken?

For Fred Malmstrom, Air Force Academy Class of '64, the answers to those questions are: yes, yes, and if you want to.

Malmstrom is a psychologist, researcher and historian of his alma mater's falls from grace. He has found the academy — where, until last week, he's served as an unpaid visiting scholar for honor since 1999 — doesn't seem interested in his documentation of a decline in cadets' respect for the honor code and an increase in infractions.

Academy officials have twice told the Independent that they weren't familiar with Malmstrom's work. Yet Malmstrom says that in early March, officials wanted to "clear" his findings prior to his presenting them at an upcoming conference.

Based on thousands of anonymous surveys filled out by graduates of the AFA, the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) and the Naval Academy between 1959 and 2010, Malmstrom has found that each academy is seeing an increase in alums who say they violated the code and didn't get caught. But it's particularly steep at the Air Force Academy, where nearly two-thirds of surveyed cadets who graduated between 2007 and 2010 say they violated the code.

Now, another barometer has delivered more bad news. The Defining Issues Test, a scientific yardstick for measuring moral thinking, has found no significant difference in the highest level of moral reasoning between academy seniors and seniors at other colleges and universities. It's also found that one in four members of the Class of 2010 regressed to lower levels of ethical decision-making while at the academy, despite 60 hours of honor and character development training.

All at an institution where taxpayers pay more than $400,000 per graduate to create "leaders of character."

Only one academy program was shown to improve cadets' DIT scores — the Scholars Program, which includes about 200 cadets or about 5 percent of the Cadet Wing, who are chosen as the peak academic performers and given intense instruction from the most qualified professors. They also attend off-campus seminars and travel internationally, unlike other cadets.

Academy officials say it's too early to fully understand why cadets didn't do better on the DIT. And, they say, it's not a reflection on the honor system. In a prepared statement in response to questions, Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Michael Gould says the academy is "constantly reviewing" the honor program.

"At the moment, it appears that we have shown a steady decline in both honor cases and convictions since 2005," he says. "As always, we will continue to review the data to identify ways we can improve our processes."

Gould's comment actually conflicts with honor data provided by the academy, which shows cases and convictions went up in 2006-07 before falling in the next two years, going up again in 2009-10 and then declining.

Asked about the discrepancy, academy spokesman Meade Warthen says in an e-mail, "The trend averages for both cases and violations over the span of 7½ years is on a downward slope."

Honor forsaken

All three military academies stress honor as the keystone in developing national leaders of character. The Air Force Academy's code states: "We will not lie, steal or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does."

Those words are bolted over the entrance to the academy's terrazzo, a route I take on a snowy February day to hear academy leaders talk about character and the honor code. After being escorted to a conference room, I am seated at the head of the table — a spot traditionally reserved for the highest-ranking officer in the room. In this case, it's Col. Joseph Sanders, director and permanent professor at the academy's Center for Character and Leadership Development.

He and his staff mount a PowerPoint presentation, prepared just for me, giving an overview of the system. It also features bar charts of the past 10 years of honor code violations that illustrate the ups and downs of trying to keep cadets honest.

In 2002-03 and 2003-04, when the academy's sexual assault scandal was in full swing, violations weren't exceptionally high, 76 and 66, respectively. (The honor code doesn't deal with crimes; those are handled through the Uniform Code of Military Justice.)

Then came 2004-05, when violations hit 94, due largely to a freshman cheating investigation. Seven cadets resigned voluntarily, and another 19 were found to have violated the code. The academy never disclosed how many were disenrolled.

In 2006-07, violations peaked with 115. Again, freshmen were caught cheating: 27 admitted to it, including 25 athletes; 17 had been found in violation of the honor code as of March 15, 2007. No update is available even five years later.

As those incidents suggest, cheating is the biggest identified problem: Of the 423 violations substantiated between fall 2006 and January 2012, 51 percent were for cheating. Another 44 percent were for lying, 3 percent for stealing, and 2 percent for tolerating others who violated the code.

Sanders' staff explains that the honor system, premised on peer pressure, is run by 182 cadets who serve on panels that hear cases and determine if violations have occurred. If so, another cadet panel, drawn from the 182, recommends punishment to the commandant, who decides what sanction to impose. Only the superintendent decides whether a cadet is kicked out.

If a cadet admits to a violation, a cadet panel reviews the case and recommends action to the commandant. One possible avenue is six months' remediation, which requires the cadet to keep a journal, to be counseled by mentors and peers, and to undergo a review for release from probation.

"We want to make sure the cadets going through those programs are fixing their character flaws that led to them having an honor violation in the first place," says Wing Honor Chairperson Sean Knowles, a senior, "and making sure they don't fall into the pitfalls or pressures they were exposed to during their violation. We want to make sure they're ready to face those kind of ethical moral challenges and dilemmas that officership inevitably will bring."

Knowles speaks well of remediation, because he went through it himself after he self-reported lying about the source of alcohol he obtained at the end of his freshman year. "There was a group of us who lied," he says. "It got to the point it was too stressful and my conscience weighed on me, and we all decided to admit."

He hasn't broken the honor code since, he says, because his probation was so effective.

"I was given a senior mentor, a retired major general from the class of 1959," Knowles says. "He provided the grandfatherly wisdom — 'Been there, done that.' You had your AOC [Air Officer Commanding] to get mentored with. You have peer counseling to discuss everything, too. You have the journaling process as well.

"A lot of it is personal soul-searching. It gets back to self-awareness. We like to say the people we accept back into the Cadet Wing aren't the same ones who violated the honor code in the first place."

Sanders says the honor system works because cadets "own" it. "There's a sense of pride at being at an institution with an honor code," he says. "That's an indication that we're doing something right."

But the academy can't provide data to show the honor code is a success other than violations numbers, which show a decline from 72 in 2009-10 to 34 through Feb. 2 this year. And the latest drug investigation (see "A history of headlines") could reverse that trend.

Honor division director Lt. Col. Bryan Huntley speaks of an honor survey given to cadets every two years, but the academy has refused to release the most recent completed survey, from 2005-07. In 2009, the academy skipped it, academy spokesman Lt. Col. John Bryan says in an e-mail. Bryan says the academy is withholding the 2005-07 survey outcome until it's integrated into a report with the 2011 results this summer.

"All indications are they show our programs and training/education are better," he says, "and we plan on releasing those and believe it will give a better picture of our hard work and efforts — showing just 05/07 wouldn't give a current, accurate picture of what's happening today."

Surveying for character

Malmstrom, a snowy-haired 72-year-old who carries his papers in a beat-up canvas satchel, came through the academy's Preparatory School when it was a pipeline for promising enlisted personnel. It's since also become a staging area for athletes and students who need additional study and training to succeed at the academy.

After graduating, Malmstrom flew bombing missions over North Vietnam and earned masters and doctoral degrees in experimental psychology. He's written more than 100 professional papers and articles, counseled prison inmates, and taught in universities from Florida to California, including his alma mater.

But he stayed in the active-duty Air Force only 11 years before moving to the reserves. He says he was disillusioned by the 1975 embezzlement case of Maj. Louis Wailly, a research officer in the academy's Life and Behavioral Sciences Department.

According to Malmstrom's paper, "The Problems With Whistle-Blowing: U.S. v. Wailly," based on Office of Special Investigation files, Wailly pleaded guilty to several charges in an investigation that revealed widespread dereliction of duty and possible conspiracy to defraud the government by him and others at the academy. Wailly was accused of stealing research funds and using academy resources to run his real estate business. He also bought two pigs for research projects, then had them slaughtered and sold the meat to his colleagues, pocketing the money. He also went on 453 trips in six years on Air Force funding. He did six years in federal prison.

But Capt. Alvin Young, a research officer who blew the whistle on Wailly, was ostracized and lectured by superiors for being disloyal, then was transferred to another base, Malmstrom writes. As he notes, "Loyalty is much easier to enforce than honesty."

He tried to get his article included in the academy's Journal of Character & Leadership Integration, but says he was told by officials that it was "too controversial." Instead, he had it published last year in the Journal of Psychological Issues in Organizational Culture.

As in the Wailly case, Malmstrom's research — which he undertook on his own, starting in 1984 — shows that acceptance of other people's violations is a big problem.

His data is based on 2,465 surveys filled out anonymously by those who graduated from all three academies over the last 51 years, which he classifies as a scientific sample. Malmstrom reached graduates by using published registers provided by graduate associations. Roughly a third of responders graduated from each academy.

Malmstrom's survey results were recently statistically analyzed by David Mullin, a former economics professor at (and current court foe of) the academy. Among the findings:

• The percentage of AFA graduates who said they committed honor violations while cadets more than doubled from the class of 1959 to the class of 2010, from 29 percent to 66 percent. At West Point, the increase went from 26 percent to 43 percent. The Naval Academy saw an increase from 36 percent to 54 percent.

• The percentage of AFA grads who said they tolerated others' infractions without reporting them grew from 5 percent in the class of 1959 to 68 percent in the class of 2010. West Point's increase went from 5 percent to just under 50 percent. The Naval Academy's results aren't comparable, because its honor concept doesn't contain a toleration clause.

• Respect for the code by Air Force Academy graduates hovered between 90 percent and 100 percent for nearly 50 years before plunging to 70 percent for the classes of 2007 to 2010. At West Point, the drop was from 100 percent to 92 percent; at the Naval Academy, from 98 percent to 77 percent.

• Motivation of Air Force Academy grads to make a career of the service has dropped from 90 percent to 50 percent. The other academies saw similar drops. For over four decades, motivation at the Air Force Academy was higher than at West Point and the Naval Academy, but since 2006, it's been the lowest.

Deaf to bad news

While conducting his research at the academy, Malmstrom felt compelled to share his survey with officials. He says he's briefed top-ranking figures, including the previous commandant and a past superintendent, and leaders in the academy's character development program.

"They say, 'Gee, that's interesting. I'll get back to you,' and then nothing happens," he says. "Some people say, 'Well, I'm not surprised,' and that's the end of it."

Malmstrom says he gave a formal presentation of his findings four years ago to the entire Center for Character and Leadership Development staff. Part of the problem, Malmstrom says, is that the military's practice of rotating personnel to new assignments every two or three years gives the academy a short memory. But this year, he says, he spoke with several people at the academy about his work, including Huntley, Sanders and others.

In February, without mentioning Malmstrom by name, the Indy asked academy character development officials including Huntley, Sanders and Tom Berry, a retired colonel who serves as deputy director of the CCLD, whether they were familiar with research comparing honor violations and toleration among the three service academies. Huntley said the academy had produced no such comparative research.

Asked if they would be interested in such research, all said they would.

On March 6, Malmstrom says, he was called to the academy to meet with Huntley, Sanders, Berry and retired Lt. Gen. Ervin Rokke, Class of 1962, a senior scholar. He was scolded for talking to a reporter and was asked to sign a document imposing privacy restrictions that he thinks would prevent him from disclosing his research publicly. "The upshot was intimidation," he says. He didn't sign.

The academy refuses to confirm or deny the meeting occurred.

In March, when the Indy submitted questions asking for a reaction to Malmstrom's work, giving specific findings from his surveys and identifying them as coming from a visiting scholar, spokesman Bryan responded in an e-mail, saying, "We're not familiar w/this study--what's the source?" The Indy then identified Malmstrom.

On March 30, Bryan said the academy believes some information to which Malmstrom has had access as a visiting scholar is covered by the Privacy Act of 1974, and academy officials "feel confident he will be responsible in its use."

Malmstrom says he has conducted his survey research without the help of the academy, except for partial funding for postage. Regardless, he will go public Saturday, April 14, in an address at the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association conference in Reno, Nev. He gave a similar speech in 1991 to the same group in Denver, when an earlier set of data covering 1959 to 1988 showed nearly half of Air Force Academy cadets had admitted to violating the code, with one in 20 cheating on academics at least once. The academy called the findings "vague" and "questionable," according to newspaper reports at the time.

What the DIT says

Malmstrom aside, the academy's now faced with another measurement of cadets' ability to think ethically.

The Defining Issues Test, developed in the 1970s by the late Dr. James Rest, a psychology professor at the University of Minnesota, has been given to academy seniors eight times and to freshmen seven times between 2002 and 2011.

"We wanted to provide some kind of empirical information to senior leaders about how well we're meeting the vision of developing leaders of character," says Terry McFarlane, a personnel research psychologist at the academy.

The test ranks moral reasoning with three labels. The lowest is "personal interest," which means the subject is acting purely from self-interest. The second is "maintain norms," showing a reliance on clear-cut rules in a defined structure or chain of command. The highest is "postconventional," which Rest described as making moral decisions based on shared ideals and principles, such as the basic human rights of life, liberty and justice.

Over the years, academy cadets, whether freshmen or seniors, have scored lower than their civilian peers in "personal interest," viewed as a good sign; they've scored higher in "maintain norms," which might be expected given the military environment; and they've scored about the same for "postconventional."

But last year, for the first time, the academy was able to see the growth of 328 cadets who took the DIT as freshmen and again as seniors. Less than half, 45 percent, moved up at least one stage; 30 percent remained at the same stage (though half of those were at the highest stage to start with); and 25 percent regressed to lower stages.

Lt. Col. Patricia Egleston, chief of the Analysis and Assessments Division, says the outcome isn't that bad.

"There's a lot of philosophical discussions you can have with this test," she says. "Because we're a military institution, you expect 'maintain norms' to be possibly higher, and there's a logical reason why we might argue that. 'Postconventional' should be strong, too. The only one we definitely, I think, don't like is the 'personal interest.'"

But data provided by the academy shows that one in 10 seniors in the matched set of 328 tested "personal interest."

"I would look at this and say, 'That doesn't seem very good at all,'" says Col. Michael Therianos, with the academy's Strategic Plans and Programs, Requirements, Assessments and Analyses Directorate. "But we're not at the stage of peeling back all the layers of the onion to see, 'Is there a problem, and can we fix it?'"

The Air Force Academy's scores led McFarlane to note on a briefing report: "Because the ability to reason morally is a basic building block in having character, we have to wonder why all of our efforts [except the Scholars Program] don't have more of a direct impact on the results of this particular test."

One study, by Ernest Pascarella of the University of Iowa and Patrick Terenzini of Penn State University, reported in 2005 that the largest freshman-to-senior gains are seen in private liberal arts college students. Lesser but substantial gains are seen by students attending large public universities. (The smallest gains are made at Bible colleges.)

Other factors can impact DIT scores. Teaching the Theory of Moral Development, upon which the DIT is based, can drive growth, McFarlane says. The academy resumed that practice this semester after dropping it from the curriculum several years ago, she adds.

Another is for students to discuss moral and ethical dilemmas, which Therianos says has become more prevalent at the academy.

A third way to influence outcomes is to thrust students into intense learning situations and times of reflection on what they've learned, says Stephen Thoma, professor at the University of Alabama's Department of Educational Studies in Psychology, Research Methodology, and Counseling, who has written extensively about the DIT. Also, students who have a great deal of faculty interaction historically do better on the test than students who don't.

Asked whether academics and off-site learning experiences typical of the Scholars Program might be extended to more cadets, Therianos says, "We can't go there yet. We're way too early in the game."

In his statement, Gould says the academy is in "the beginning stages" of analyzing the effectiveness of multiple assessment tools, including the DIT. "Once this analysis is complete," he says, "the recommendations will be vetted through our USAFA Corporate Process to ensure all of the USAFA senior leaders are aware of the effectiveness of our efforts."

But Mullin, the former professor who unsuccessfully sued the academy last year over a religious issue, says the DIT results underscore his contention that many academy instructors aren't qualified to teach the subjects to which they're assigned. His claim led to an Air Force Inspector General's investigation and subsequent finding of negligence in February against Dean of Faculty Brig. Gen. Dana Born and Vice Dean Col. Richard Fullerton for asserting publicly and to an accreditation agency that all faculty have advanced degrees in subjects they're assigned to teach.

Mullin, who's suing over his contract not being renewed after 13 years at the academy, says the DIT results suggest only those cadets in the Scholars Program receive academic instruction at a level that impacts character development. "It begs the question," he says, "Why is it that all the faculty don't have the same standards, so that the remaining 95 percent of the cadets have that exposure? Is that the best they can do?"

— zubeck@csindy.com

So, what would you do?

The Defining Issues Test is based on work done by college psychology professor Lawrence Kohlberg in forming his Theory of Moral Development. James Rest and three other professors at the University of Minnesota further refined Kohlberg's interview format into a test in the late '70s and '80s.

The test consists of five scenarios in which a moral judgment must be made. The DIT-2, a new version of the former test, is copyrighted and can't be reproduced in full, but here's a brief outline of each scenario:

• Whether a man, whose starving family lives in the same village as a rich man who hoards food, should steal the food.

• Whether a school board member should hold a second public meeting on school closures after the first one erupted in threats of violence.

• Whether a reporter who discovers a 20-year-old shoplifting infraction by a political candidate should publish the story.

• Whether a doctor should give a cancer patient an overdose of pain medicine, at her request, that would likely end her life.

• Whether college students, who took over the administration building to demonstrate against the country's foreign policy, should be allowed to continue demonstrating.

When taking the test, you first choose whether to take the action, not take the action, or say you "can't decide." You then rank in order of importance which 12 factors played a role in the decision.

For the starving-family scenario, some of the factors are:

• Does the man have enough courage to risk getting caught?

• Isn't it natural for a father to steal for his family?

• The community's laws should be upheld.

• Does the rich man have a right to keep the food when others are starving?

• Does the rich man deserve to be robbed?

The DIT places you in one of three stages of development:

• Personal interest — acting selfishly.

• Maintains norms — acting from a desire to follow uniform rules through a chain of command.

• Postconventional — acting from shared ideals and principles.

(Pam Zubeck)

Academy Task Force Report

The long awaited Task Force Report (The Report) has finally arrived, and it is big in two respects. It is big in size, and it is a big disappointment. It does not plow any new ground. It does not tell us anything that we did not already know. Unless you have been on the moon for the last 40 years, there is nothing new in the report. Experience is the best teacher, and history is a reliable guide. The reality of seeing the world through lenses formed by dated experiences is not a handicap. It is called tradition. It keeps you on course and prevents reinventing the wheel every generation. However, between the jibber-jabber there was some great analysis and a few factual and historical inaccuracies. But, overall the Report is a commendable snapshot of the Coast Guard Academy culture.
https://www.uscg.mil/foia/taskforce/Appendix.Release.pdf
Maybe the Task Force Report was just a diversion, a means to buy some time until the furor over the Webster Smith case subsided.

It is an old Washington, DC trick. If you want to table a matter or if you want to buy some time, then you form a Commission or a Study Group. That will buy you some time and it will give the various factions time to cool off. This Task Force took about six months and that was enough. Not many people except for certain elements of the news media are as emotionally wrought over the Webster Smith case today as they were six months ago. So, in that respect, the Task Force was a success.

It is not new or surprising that cadets do not trust Company Officers. That is old news. Before the female cadets came, the Company Officers were not fully trusted, but they were revered. They were respected and they had a close working relationship with the Cadet Company Officers. We even had dinner at their homes on occasion. That chemistry changed when the female cadets arrived. If there was only a little trust before the Webster Smith Case, it is no wonder that even that pecuniary amount has been severely eroded after the cadets witnessed how vulnerable they were if they stepped forward and became involved. Cadets went to school on the Webster Smith case and its aftermath. They saw exactly how the system worked. They saw the most senior officers exhibiting character traits that were far outside of the Honor Code. They learned what kind of reprehensible behavior was allowed and was geared to help you survive when the chips are down.

Doubt, distrust, and disillusionment were introduced into the barracks. Social anthropologists should not have been surprised. Before Captain Cook arrived in the South Pacific, the Tahitians had no concept of personal property or immorality. Captain Cook introduced the concept of personal ownership and the Anglican sense of sexual immorality. The Tahitians, who for two thousand years had owned everything communally, thrived and dance nude, began to covet the possessions of others. They put on clothes to cover their nakedness and became drunken and sexually promiscuous. The alcohol, the clothes, sense of personal ownership, the feeling of sinning and Western diseases wiped out thousands of Tahitians.

Introducing a new element always means some change in the chemistry. Just the rumor in the 60’s that Black cadets were coming started the ripples in the Corps of Cadets in the Class of 1966. When Ned Lofton, Mike Grace, Ron Blendu, and Imonse Leskinovich, among others, mostly cadets from Massachusetts and Florida, heard that Kenny Boyd and London Steverson were going to break the color barrier in the Class of 1968, they immediately let it be known that they intended to institute their “plantation policy”. Merle Smith stepped up and said, “Not over my dead body”.

It was common practice in those days for upperclass cadets to make slaves of swabs, incoming freshmen.The swab would be required to come to the upperclassman’s room every morning, empty the waste basket, sweep the floor, make the bed, do the laundry, and anything else the upperclassman desired. (See, COMMAND and LEADERSHIP, NOT ALWAYS the SAME, by Ray Coye, PhD, CGA Class 1971, CGA Alumni Bulletin, Vol69, No.4, p. 10) It is similar to the practice in prison where a convict adopts a younger, weaker, more effeminate convict as his personal “cup cake”. The slave practice continued through the 70’s, 80’s, and maybe even until today. An upperclassman could require a swab to do anything he pleased, depending on his proclivities. There were no female cadets in the barracks in those days. Today, there are women in Chase Hall. One can only wonder what they are required to do today to escape hazing and punishment.


Introducing women into the cadet corps had a profound affect on the cadet psyche. Sexual attraction, petty rivalries, competition for favors, urges to impress, ambitiousness cut across class lines. Loyalties shifted. They shifted from cadet loyalty upwards to the Company officers. The new loyalties were lateral to fellow cadets, and the Company Officers went from friends to enemies. That is what you have today.

The 23 or so incidents of sexual involvement that the Task Force looked at were the same ones that the Webster Smith Civil Rights Investigator looked at, but she only acknowledged 11. That appears to be a low number and that may be cause for elation in some quarters, but it all depends on how you define the parameters.






It is as President Bill Clinton would say; “It all depends on your definition of a sexual incident”. The Task Force and the Civil Rights investigator only looked at the most extreme cases. So, there were only 11 to 23 that were so egregious that they had to be dealt with by the Administration. They did not even consider the many that only involved public displays of affection, hand holding, caressing, touching body parts, and feeling each other up; not to mention, the untold numerous cases of consensual sex between cadets who fancied themselves as being in love. Those were not considered. And there were the many incidents that were not reported and are known only to the cadets. They did not report them because they could not trust the Company Officers, and they did not want to be known as a snitch. And those were legion.

So, you can predetermine your outcome by the way you define your parameters. I know, the cadets know, and most of the Administration suspects that there are many more incidents that they would just as soon leave in the closet. The cadets have learned that their security lies in their obscurity.


In a student body of only about 950, with 30 per cent being females, if 73 percent of the cadets occasionally engage in sexual relations with “other cadets in Chase Hall” there would logically have to be more than 11 to 23 incidents of sexual misconduct, since the Regulations forbid all sex between cadets in Chase Hall. If 79 percent of the cadets believe in binge drinking and over half do not believe looking at pornography disrupts good order and discipline, then Chase Hall is a hot bed of sexual activity. There is more anatomy being studied than seamanship in Chase Hall. I dare say that there is more torrid sex taking place in Chase Hall than in Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion. (The Report, page 24, Step One Analysis).

Even assuming the Report is correct that sexual assaults are at about 5 percent, in a population of 950, that would indicate 48 assaults. (The Report, page 40) If we included the consensual sexual activity, then 11 to 23 incidents of sexual misconduct in Chase Hall is highly doubtful. And out of all that committed sex, only Webster Smith was consider worthy of a General Court-martial.










“Women generally outperform their male counterparts in both academic and military requirements”, according to the Report. (The Report, page 39). If that is truly the case, then it is a good thing the Academy is not a regular “Joe College”. The percentage of women in the student body could easily go from 30 percent to 70 or 80 percent on a strictly merit system of admissions. Men would have to seek “affirmative action” in order to gain admission. The Admissions Office would have to consider GENDER as a factor in admissions, along with race, SAT scores, and extra-curricular activities. It would be the Whole-man Concept, or perhaps the Whole-person Concept.

One out of three cadets graduating in the Class of 2007 from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy will be a woman, making it the largest class of female cadets to graduate.



President George W. Bush is scheduled to deliver the keynote speech to the 229 graduates.


The Task Force Report is factually and historically incorrect on several points. Cadet Merle Smith’s appointment was not a result of President John F. Kennedy’s observations that there were no Black cadets marching in the Coast Guard Academy contingent in his 1961 inaugural parade. It would take months for Kennedy’s observation to be relayed through the chain of command all the way to the Academy Admissions Office. Then the word would have to filter down to the Recruiting Offices. Moreover, Merle Smith would have had to take the SAT exam and complete the application for admission before the Academy even marched in the Kennedy inaugural parade. Merle Smith was a service brat. His father was a career military officer. His family moved around consistently. His father being an army colonel wanted his son to get a free military academy education, but he could not get a Congressional appointment. The Coast Guard Academy is the only service academy that does not require a Congressional appointment. So, Colonel Smith applied to the Coast Guard Academy for his son. In 1962 when Merle Smith arrived at the Academy, it was not as a Black cadet. He had competed and gained admission without any regard to his possible ethnic background. He was not recruited as a Black cadet. He was not admitted as a Black cadet. It was not until 1964 two years later when Kenny Boyd and London Steverson were admitted in the Class of 1968, that it was discovered that Merle Smith was of African American background. There have never been more than two Kennedy Cadets. They are Boyd and Steverson.

Cadet Anthony Alejandro would hardly consider himself Hispanic. He was an Argentine from an aristocratic family. They considered themselves Italian. They disdain Spaniards, especially Mexicans. They say that they are the only Europeans in South America.

The Report makes no mention of Cadet Donnie Winchester. He was a favorite of Otto Graham. He was in the Class of 1966.He was the first American Indian of almost pure blood to graduate from the Academy. Perhaps Indians are so rich now with their casinos and the rich mineral deposits on the Reservation lands, they are no longer considered a minority group. The Census Bureau probably still classifies them as a minority group.

Jarvis L. Wright may be another case of “racial kidnapping”. From 1876 to 1961 there had never been a Black graduate from the Coast Guard Academy.
Wikipedia allowed someone in the Coast Guard to insert a reference to Jarvis Wright into an article concerning Black Cadets at the Coast Guard Academy. The Coast Guard must be extremely desperate to even attempt such a ploy as to try to move the time line for the first appointment tendered to a Black cadet back from 1962 to 1955, from Merle Smith to Jarvis Wright.
All history is spin, but this is revisionist history at its worst. Jarvis Wright is the original “invisible man”. Only a young naive person would even conceive of such a ridiculous thought. Anyone over 50 years old would know immediately that this is a most unlikely scenario. In 1954 the Nation was undergoing a revolution. The Supreme Court was about to announce a “unanimous” Decision concerning racial segregation in the case of Brown v Board of Education. Everyone was riveted to their television screens watching the race riots in Little Rock, Arkansas. Not since the Civil War had the Southern states so openly defied the Federal Government. Racial integration was on everyone’s minds. President Eisenhower was forced to choose between sending in Federal Troops or nationalizing the Arkansas National Guard to force Governor Orville Faubuss to allow Black students to enroll at Central High School in Little Rock. He ended up using the Screaming Eagles from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
It is unthinkable that Coast Guard senior officers who were born and raised in the Deep South were secretly trying to recruit a Black; the first Black cadet in the history of the Academy. What idiot would even dream of such a nightmare? The thought is not even conceivable. Even the thought or the recommendation to do such a thing would have ruined any white officer’s career in the Coast Guard.
Jarvis Wright is the original “invisible man”. Where is the evidence that Jarvis Wright ever existed? What state did he come from? What high school did he graduate from? Where is the proof? There is none.
In the 50s and the 60s it was mandatory that a Black high school student applying to a white college was required to submit a photo with the application. They wanted to make sure that you were black, but not too black. This was one of the institutionalized segregationist racist practices that were abolished after the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. I had to submit a photo with my application to the Coast Guard Academy in 1962 and 1963. If Jarvis Wright ever existed, then the Coast Guard Academy and the Commandant Office of Personnel would have his application and a photo as evidence. Some one should publish it.
Moreover, I worked in Coast Guard Headquarters in the Office of Personnel for seven years from 1972 to 1979, and no one ever mention anyone by the name of Jarvis Wright. I was the personification and the embodiment of Minority Recruiting for the Coast Guard. Except for Lcdr Maxie M. Berry in the Civil rights Office and Earl Brown in the Office of Engineering, the only two other Black officers at Headquarters were assigned to my staff. They were Earl Martin and Walter Sapp. They worked for me. In no meetings or discussions, either formal or informal, did the name of Jarvis Wright ever come up.
This is just another reason the Coast Guard cannot be trusted to write history. Their motives are suspect. Anyone who would "take a bow" for recruiting white women as a minority deserves to be subjected to the strictest scrutiny before accepting such unbelievable claims more than 50 years after the fact. Could this be another case of Racial Kidnapping, as in the case of Michael Healy? The Coast Guard has been known to do this sort of this before. As President Reagan said “We must trust BUT verify”. Where is the proof? Show us a picture of Jarvis Wright? Or is he truly the invisible man?
It is highly questionable whether Jarvis Wright was recruited as an African American or was of a minority ethnic group, even if he ever existed, any more than Captain Michael Healy. He was a white Irish catholic who has been heralded by the Coast Guard as the “Black Hero of the North”, and as the first Black Captain in Coast Guard history. Mike Healy was not Black. He was a white, hard drinking Irishman.

So, it is highly unlikely that from President Kennedy’s remarks in 1961 to 1962, the Coast Guard looked for, found, and persuaded to apply for admission to the Academy a Black high school student. The facts and the timeline speak for themselves. You are entitled to your own opinion, BUT you are not entitled to your own FACTS.
Any student or writer of contemporary history has a duty to disclose his or her subjective values. This obligation is all the more imperative for an African American writing about the times and the events in which he lived. One must always seek to maintain critical distance from the subject. However, cold detachment is not required to be factually correct and objective. Twenty years after my Coast Guard career ended, have given me sufficient distance to reflect soberly upon a subject that I find infinitely fascinating. That is to say, why did it take so long to allow African Americans to serve in the Coast Guard officer corps. Also, since I found it so easy to recruit Black male high school graduates to the Academy, why was I run out of that job after I had demonstrated that it could be done.
All history is spin. The history of the first Black cadets to enter the Coast Guard Academy is too complex and too serious to be left primarily to Coast Guard Public Information Officers whose first impulse is to make the Coast Guard look good and honorable. They would readily sacrifice truth and accuracy to do that. The exclusion of African Americans from the Academy from 1876 until 1962 is a tragic fact of American history. My memory and interpretation of this history would be even more serious flawed than it undoubted is, were it not for the official records that I kept of every significant event that occurred in my life as a Coast Guard officer. My perspective my be subject to debate, but my facts are irrefutable.
The segregation of Black enlisted men in the ranks and the exclusion of Blacks from the officer training programs were legally sanctioned by the Doctrine of Plessey v Ferguson and its Jim Crow laws that this Nation accepted until the late 1960s. I was born and raised within that system. For the first 17 years of my life I existed on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.
Were it not for President John F Kennedy, my class and status would have never afforded me an opportunity to attend the Coast Guard Academy, a previously all white institution. Try as I might to escape the psychological baggage of my early years of living in apartheid, this Blog tends to reflect the imprint of my early childhood in the segregated South. My recitation of what I view as facts my draw the ire of the casual white reader and bring forth accusations of lack of neutrality and bias.
My experience in the Coast Guard from 1968 to 1988, and the court-martial of Cadet Webster Smith helped me to understand why Black parents were so reluctant to hand over their sons to Coast Guard recruiters before I became the Chief of Minority Recruiting in 1972.








It appears that President George Bush has been invited to be the Graduation Speaker for the Class of 2007. Well, Mr. President in your remarks I urge you to grant a Presidential Pardon to Cadet Webster Smith. He has more in common with you than most of the other Cadets. He is a Texan, just as you. And, he has been railroaded. Even Pontius Pilate pardoned one convicted felon a year for the Jews. You have much more good old Christian charity in your heart than Pontius Pilate ever had. So, Mr. President unless you intend to grant a Presidential Pardon to Webster Smith, I urge you to walk away from this speaking invitation. Just walk away.



Just walk away.

Judge London Steverson
London Eugene Livingston Steverson (born March 13, 1947) was one of the first two African Americans to graduate from the United States Coast Guard Academy in 1968. Later, as chief of the newly formed Minority Recruiting Section of the United States Coast Guard (USCG), he was charged with desegregating the Coast Guard Academy by recruiting minority candidates. He retired from the Coast Guard in 1988 and in 1990 was appointed to the bench as a Federal Administrative Law Judge with the Office of Hearings and Appeals, Social Security Administration.

Early Life and Education
Steverson was born and raised in Millington, Tennessee, the oldest of three children of Jerome and Ruby Steverson. At the age of 5 he was enrolled in the E. A. Harrold elementary school in a segregated school system. He later attended the all black Woodstock High School in Memphis, Tennessee, graduating valedictorian.
A Presidential Executive Order issued by President Truman had desegregated the armed forces in 1948,[1] but the service academies were lagging in officer recruiting. President Kennedy specifically challenged the United States Coast Guard Academy to tender appointments to Black high school students. London Steverson was one of the Black student to be offered such an appointment, and when he accepted the opportunity to be part of the class of 1968, he became the second African American to enter the previously all-white military academy. On June 4, 1968 Steverson graduated from the Coast Guard Academy with a BS degree in Engineering and a commission as an ensign in the U.S. Coast Guard.
In 1974, while still a member of the Coast Guard, Steverson entered The National Law Center of The George Washington University and graduated in 1977 with a Juris Doctor of Laws Degree.

USCG Assignments.
Steverson's first duty assignment out of the Academy was in Antarctic research logistical support. In July 1968 he reported aboard the Coast Guard Cutter (CGC) Glacier [2] (WAGB-4), an icebreaker operating under the control of the U.S. Navy, and served as a deck watch officer and head of the Marine Science Department. He traveled to Antarctica during two patrols from July 1968 to August 1969, supporting the research operations of the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Research Project in and around McMurdo Station. During the 1969 patrol the CGC Glacier responded to an international distress call from the Argentine icebreaker General SanMartin, which they freed.
He received another military assignment from 1970 to 1972 in Juneau, Alaska as a Search and Rescue Officer. Before being certified as an Operations Duty Officer, it was necessary to become thoroughly familiar with the geography and topography of the Alaskan remote sites. Along with his office mate, Ltjg Herbert Claiborne "Bertie" Pell, the son of Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell, Steverson was sent on a familiarization tour of Coast Guard, Navy and Air Force bases. The bases visited were Base Kodiak, Base Adak Island, and Attu Island, in the Aleutian Islands.[3]
Steverson was the Duty Officer on September 4, 1971 when an emergency call was received that an Alaska Airlines Boeing 727 airline passenger plane was overdue at Juneau airport. This was a Saturday and the weather was foggy with drizzling rain. Visibility was less than one-quarter mile. The 727 was en route to Seattle, Washington from Anchorage, Alaska with a scheduled stop in Juneau. There were 109 people on board and there were no survivors. Steverson received the initial alert message and began the coordination of the search and rescue effort. In a matter of hours the wreckage from the plane, with no survivors, was located on the side of a mountain about five miles from the airport. For several weeks the body parts were collected and reassembled in a staging area in the National Guard Armory only a few blocks from the Search and Rescue Center where Steverson first received the distress broadcast.[4]. Later a full investigation with the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the cause of the accident was equipment failure.[5]
Another noteworthy item is Steverson's involvement as an Operations Officer during the seizure of two Russian fishing vessels, the Kolevan and the Lamut for violating an international agreement prohibiting foreign vessels from fishing in United States territorial waters. The initial attempts at seizing the Russian vessels almost precipitated an international incident when the Russian vessels refused to proceed to a U. S. port, and instead sailed toward the Kamchatka Peninsula. Russian MIG fighter planes were scrambled, as well as American fighter planes from Elmendorf Air Force Base before the Russian vessels changed course and steamed back
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