Note (Back) — CHAPTER 17

The Army's leaders received the necessary reassurances in the coming months. The Secretary of Defense laid to rest their fear that the draft-dependent Army would become a dumping ground for the ignorant and untrainable when, in April 1951, he directed that troops must be distributed among the services on a qualitative basis. Assistant Secretary of the Army Johnson asked Professor Eli Ginzberg, a social scientist and consultant to the Army, to explain to the Army Policy Council the need for aggressive action to end segregation.[17-71] And once again, but this time with considerable scientific detail to support its recommendations, the Project Clear final report told Army leaders that the service should be integrated worldwide. Again the researchers found that the Army's problem was not primarily racial, but a question of how best to use underqualified men. Refining their earlier figures, they decided that black soldiers were best used in integrated units at a ratio of 15 to 85. Integration on the job was conducive to social integration, they discovered, and social integration, dependent on several variables, was particularly amenable to firm policy guidance and local control. Finally, the report found that integration on military posts was accepted by local civilians as a military policy unlikely to affect their community.[17-72]