Note (Back) — CHAPTER 14

At the same time Secretary of Defense Forrestal was aware that the interests of a committee enjoying White House support could not be ignored. His attempt to develop a new racial policy was probably in part an effort to forestall committee criticism and in part a wish to draw up a policy that would satisfy the committee without really doing much to change things. After all, such a departmental attitude toward committees, both congressional and presidential, was fairly normal. Faced with the conflicting racial policies of the Air Force and Army, Forrestal agreed to let the services present their separate programs to the Fahy Committee, but he wanted to develop a race policy applicable to all the services.[14-4] Some of his subordinates debated the wisdom of this decision, arguing that the President had assigned that task to the Fahy Committee, but they were overruled. Forrestal ordered the newly created Personnel Policy Board to undertake, simultaneously with the committee, a study of the department's racial policy. The board was to concentrate on "breaking down the problem," as Forrestal put it, into its component parts and trying to arrive quietly at areas of agreement on a uniform policy that could be held in readiness until the Fahy Committee made its report.[14-5]