Note (Back) — CHAPTER 6

Attitudes toward the new policy varied with interpretations of the board's statement of objectives. Secretary Patterson saw in the report "a significant development in the status of the Negro soldiers in the Army." The immediate effect of using Negroes in composite units and overhead assignments, he predicted, would be to change War Department policy on segregation.[6-24] But the success of the policy could not be guaranteed by a secretary of war, and some of his advisers were more guarded in their estimates. To Truman Gibson, once again in government service, but briefly this time, the report seemed a good beginning because it offered a new approach, one that had originated within the Army itself. Yet Gibson was wary of its chances for success: The board's recommendations, he told the Assistant Secretary of War, would make for a better Army "only if they are effectively carried out."[6-25] The newly appointed assistant secretary, Howard C. Petersen, was equally cautious. Explaining the meaning of the report to the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association, he warned that "a strong policy weakly enforced will be of little value to the Army."[6-26]