Royall, Kenneth Claiborne

Royall, Kenneth Claiborne, 1894–1971, U.S. army officer and government official, b. Goldsboro, N.C., grad. Univ. of North Carolina (1914), Harvard Law School (1917). Royall served in World War I (1917–19), then practised law (1919–42) and was elected (1927) to the North Carolina senate as a Democrat. Rejoining the army (1942–45) as a colonel, he headed its legal division and then became (1943) its deputy fiscal director, rising to brigadier general. In 1945 he became special assistant to Henry Stimson, secretary of war, and President Truman subsequently appointed him undersecretary of war (1945–47), secretary of war (1947, the last to serve in the post), and secretary of the army (1947–49, the first in the post). Royall was forced to retire after he resisted Truman's order to integrate the army; he then practised law in New York City (1949–67).

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