Note (Back) — CHAPTER 15

There was some justification for the Defense Department's position. Many of those who found racial designations distasteful also demanded hard statistical proof that members of minority groups were given equal treatment and opportunity,[15-19] and such assurances, of course, demanded racial determinations on the records. Still, not all the reasons for retaining the racial identification entry were so defensible. The Army, for example, had to maintain accurate statistics on the number of Negroes inducted because of its concern with a possible unacceptable rise in their number and the President's promise to reimpose the quota to prevent such an increase. Whatever the reasons, it was obvious that racial statistics had to be kept. It was also obvious that as long as they were kept and continued to matter, the Secretary of Defense would be saddled with the task of deciding in the end which racial tag to attach to each man in the armed forces. It was an unenviable duty, and it could be performed with neither precision nor justice.