Note (Back) — CHAPTER 21

This special connection between the Department of Defense and the Gesell Committee influenced the course of the investigation. True to his concept of the committee as a fact-finding team, McNamara personally remained aloof from its proceedings, never trying to influence its investigation or findings. Ironically, Gesell would later complain about this remoteness, regretting the secretary's failure to intervene in the case of the recalcitrant National Guard.[21-14] He could harbor no complaint, however, against the secretary's special assistant, Yarmolinsky, who carefully guided the committee's investigation to the explosive subject of off-base discrimination. Even while expressing the committee's independence, Gesell recognized Yarmolinsky's influence. "It was perfectly clear," Gesell later noted, "that Yarmolinsky was interested in the off-base housing and discrimination situation, but he had no solution to suggest. He wanted the committee to come up with one."[21-15] Yarmolinsky formally spelled out this interest when he devised the group's presidential directive. The committee, he informed Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson during March 1962, would devote itself to those measures that should be taken to improve the effectiveness of current policies and procedures in the services and to the methods whereby the Department of Defense could improve equality of opportunity for members of the armed forces and their dependents in the civilian community.[21-16]