Note (Back) — CHAPTER 21

This suggestion no doubt pleased McNamara. Although the committee's recommendations might be the logical outcome of its investigations, in the absence of a strong federal civil rights law even a sympathetic secretary of defense could not accept such radical changes in the services' community relations programs without reservations. Nor, as Gesell later admitted, could a secretary of defense chance the serious compromise to the administration's effort to win passage of such a law that could be caused by some "too gung-ho" commander left to impose sanctions on his own.[21-62] The secretary agreed with the committee that much could be done by individual commanders in a voluntary way to change the customs of the local community, and he wanted the emphasis to be kept there.