Note (Back) — CHAPTER 14

That the committee expected the Secretary of Defense to take the lead in racial affairs, refraining from dictating policy itself, did not mean that Fahy and his associates lacked a definite point of view. From the first, Fahy understood Truman's executive order to mean unequivocally that the services would have to abandon segregation, an interpretation reinforced in a later discussion he had with the President.[14-35] The purpose of the committee, in Fahy's view, was not to impose integration on the services, but to convince them of the merits of the President's order and to agree with them on a plan to make it effective.