Recruitment and work as a naval intelligence officer during WWII
Rivera describes his work in naval intelligence during World War II. He describes how he was recruited for the job under the guise of arrest and how he helped to keep surveillance of sailors stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. His comments are revealing of one way in which African Americans participated in the war effort beyond the typical discriminatory positions they held in the military at that time. At the same time, the way in which he describes his recruitment is also illustrative of discriminatory practices in the military at that time.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Alexander M. Rivera, November 30, 2001. Interview C-0297. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
In the war I was in naval intelligence. I was at Norfolk, worked out
of Norfolk. This was '45-46.
- KIERAN TAYLOR:
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Okay so this was after. So shortly after you graduated then you went into
Naval intelligence.
- ALEXANDER RIVERA:
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The war was on. I went, shortly after I left here Dr. Shepard and I were
always fussing and fighting about something. I fell out with him about
something. I don't know what it was. It may be
inconsequential but - . The Norfolk Journal
Guide newspaper heard that we were having difficulty. So they
offered me a job. So I was in Norfolk. This was during the war
19 - see I graduated in '41. Early I went to work
for The Journal Guide newspaper in Norfolk. It
wasn't any time before the Navy interviewed me for a job with
Naval Intelligence. So I worked with them until the war was over.
- KIERAN TAYLOR:
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What kind of work did you do for Naval intelligence? Was it
journalism?
- ALEXANDER RIVERA:
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No. Intelligence. See I had a, I was a commander class. It was captain,
captain class, but I was arrested one day and carried to the police
station. In the back of the police station were these Navy officers. As
soon as I walked in one of them says, shook his head and said,
'No, no, no. He won't do. He won't
do.' I said, 'Now just a
minute.' I said, 'This
is - I've been arrested here and brought up by the
police department. Now you said I won't do. I
won't do for what. Was is this about?' So they
explained to me that they were looking for a nondescript Negro that they
wanted for Naval intelligence. To stay out of it, because I had already
passed - . I was ready to go into the service, and I knew it
was just a matter of days before I would go into most anything. So I
said Naval intelligence. You're talking about these clothes
I've got on. I said, 'They're not
tattooed on. These come off. All this comes off.' I said,
'I can be nondescript in ten minutes.' The guy
says, 'Sit down there. Let's talk about
this.' So we sat down and started talking and he found out
that aside from being a reporter I had two years of law. I had taken two
years of law in Washington at night while I was working. I was going to
Terrell Law School. It's a night law school there. The reason
I went was not to be a lawyer because they were the poorest, black
lawyers are the poorest people on earth. I was going, I was taking the
law to understand court reporting. So I would go in court and all of
sudden somebody will say something in Latin and everybody would (
). I needed to take some law. So I took two years
of law. So then they found out this, when told me, let's sit
down and let's chat. They said, 'Oh yeah.
You've finished school. You have law. You're not a
lawyer, but you've gone to law school. Captain Gray spoke up.
He said, 'Well I'm not going to say yes or no
today. I'm going to think about it a little bit.'
He said, 'But I'll call you.' I said
sure. I was rooming with a woman, in a rooming house there. She said to
me, she says, 'Now what have you done? What's the
police say?' I said, 'Not a thing.' But
I couldn't tell her. I said, 'Not a thing. I
haven't done a thing.' She said, 'You
must have because the police came by and locked you up.' I
said, 'Do you see I'm not locked up.'
She was there with her. She lived with daughters. I was
the only man in the house. So she said, 'Now
I'm here by myself. If you're doing something, you
let me know now.' I said, 'No Miss Hudson.
I'm not doing anything at all.' So I said,
'It was all a mistake. All a mistake.' She said,
'Well okay.' I said - they came by
looking for me and asked her if they knew me. So she looked at them she
said, 'I don't know if I do or not. I
don't know if I do.' She said, 'You
know my daughters take care of all my business.' She looks at
him hemming and hawing. She was saying that her mind wasn't
but so good. She was giving all kinds of reasons not to know me, give me
a chance to move out. So then I went to work for the, in the Office of
Naval Intelligence.
- KIERAN TAYLOR:
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But that's how they recruited is they went around and arrested
people, took them in and did an interrogation.
- ALEXANDER RIVERA:
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Well you see, across from the police office, police department there was
a theatre, right across the street a theatre. The girl who took up
tickets saw everybody who went in the police department. She saw them
take me into the police department. By the time I got out of the police
department it was all over town that I'd been arrested
because she sat up there with a phone and she can call everybody in town
and tell them I was arrested. I wasn't supposed to tell
anybody. They had some others in the Army, the G2. Their secret service
was called G2. We were just called Naval intelligence. But we
weren't supposed to know each other, but we got a chance to
know most of each other.
- KIERAN TAYLOR:
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Did you ship out?
- ALEXANDER RIVERA:
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No, I stayed in Norfolk.
- KIERAN TAYLOR:
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You stayed in Norfolk.
- ALEXANDER RIVERA:
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We went as far as Richmond, Virginia. I worked in Virginia.
- KIERAN TAYLOR:
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What kind of work were you doing with intelligence?
- ALEXANDER RIVERA:
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Trying to find out if anybody was talking or saying anything. I got a job
with a night club photographing sailors with the girls sitting all on
their laps. They had the expression loose lips sink ships. I was finding
out where they had a house of prostitution. I worked several houses of
prostitution, several houses. It was our job to find out if they were
any, if these sailors were talking because they didn't know
how much the girls would tell about ship movement.
- KIERAN TAYLOR:
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Sure. Did you ever find any kind of incidents of spying or at least any
incidents of sailors who were loose with the tongues -
- ALEXANDER RIVERA:
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Well, we were, we were like that but no specifics. We would get a general
way they were talking too much. You see at the night club they were
drinking whiskey. A girl sitting in your lap and they would say most
anything. But most places were being watched and I didn't
have any -