Note (Back) — CHAPTER 21

The committee devoted the largest portion of its final report to the National Guard, "the only branch of the Armed Forces," it told President Johnson, "which has not been fully integrated."[21-82] Chairman Gesell later reported that when the segregated state guards were pressured they "resisted like hell."[21-83] This resistance had a political dimension, but when Attorney General Kennedy chided that "you are killing us with the Guard," Gesell replied that the committee took orders from the President and would ignore the political problems involved. Nevertheless, before the committee issued its report Gesell sent the portions on the National Guard to the Justice Department for comment, as one justice official noted, "apparently ... in the hope that its recommendation will not prove embarrassing to the administration."[21-84]