reporter pointed out to Governor Strom Thurmond of South
Carolina that the President had only accepted a platform similar to
those supported by Roosevelt, the governor answered, "I agree, but
Truman really means it."[12-60] After the platform fight the Alabama and
Mississippi delegates walked out of the convention. The Dixiecrat
revolt was on in earnest.

[Footnote 12-60: Quoted in Truman, _Memoirs_, II:183;
see also Interv, Nichols with Truman, and Millis,
_Forrestal Diaries_, p. 458.]

Both the Democratic platform and the report of the President's Civil
Rights Committee referred to discrimination in the federal government,
a matter obviously susceptible to presidential action. For once the
"do-nothing" Congress could not be blamed, and if Truman failed to act
promptly he would only invite the wrath of the civil rights forces he
was trying to court. Aware of this political necessity, the
President's advisers had been studying the areas in which the
President alone might act in forbidding discrimination as well as the
mechanics by which he might make his actions effective. According to
Oscar Ewing, the advisers had decided as early as October 1947 that
the best way to handle discrimination in the federal government was to
issue a presidential order securing the civil rights of both civilian
government employees and members of the armed forces. In the end the
President decided to issue two executive orders.[12-61]

[Footnote 12-61: Interv, Nichols with Ewing.]

Clifford, Ewing, and Philleo Nash, who was a presidential specialist
on minority matters, worked on drafting both orders. After consulting
with Truman Gibson, Nash proposed that the order directed to the
services should create a committee within the military establishment
to push for integration, one similar to the McCloy committee in World
War II. Like Gibson, Nash was convinced that change in the armed
forces racial policy would come only through a series of steps
initiated in each service. By such steps progress had been made in the
Navy through its Special Programs Unit and in the Army through the
efforts of the McCloy committee. Nash argued against the publication
of an executive order that spelled out integration or condemned
segregation. Rather, let the order to the services call for equal
treatment and opportunity--the language of the Democratic platform.
Tie it to military eff