Note (Back) — CHAPTER 19

These excuses for not dealing with off-base discrimination continued throughout the decade. As late as 1959, discussing a case of racial discrimination near an Army base in Germany, a Defense Department spokesman explained to Congressman James Roosevelt that "since the incident did not take place on one of our military bases, we are not in a position to offer direct relief in the situation...."[19-18] Even James Evans, the racial counselor, came to use this explanation. "Community mores with respect to race vary," Evans wrote in 1956, and "such matters are largely beyond direct purview of the Department of Defense."[19-19]