iciency, letting the services discover, under
guidance from a White House committee, the inefficiency of segregation.
The services would quickly conclude, the advisers assumed, that equal
treatment and opportunity were impossible in a segregated (p. 311)
system.[12-62] After a series of discussions with the President, Nash,
Clifford, and Ewing drew up a version of the order to the services
along the lines suggested by Nash.[12-63]

[Footnote 12-62: Memo, Niles for Clifford, 12 May 48;
Memo, Clifford for SecDef, 13 May 48, Nash
Collection, Truman Library.]

[Footnote 12-63: Interv, Nichols with Ewing.]

The draft underwent one significant revision at the request of the
Secretary of Defense. In keeping with his theory that the services
should be given the chance to work out their own methods of compliance
with the order to integrate, Forrestal wanted no deadlines set. To
keep antagonisms to a minimum he wanted the order to call simply for
progress "as rapidly as feasible." The President agreed.[12-64]

[Footnote 12-64: Nichols, _Breakthrough on the Color
Front_, p. 86.]

The timing of the order was politically important to Truman, and by
late July the White House was extremely anxious to publish the
document. The President now had his all-important selective service
legislation; he was beginning to campaign on a platform calling for a
special session of Congress--a Congress dominated by Republicans, who
had also just approved a party platform calling for an end to
segregation in the armed forces. Haste was evident in the fact that
the order, along with copies for the service secretaries, was sent to
the Secretary of Defense on the morning of 26 July--the day it was
issued--for comment and review by that afternoon.[12-65] The order was
also submitted to Walter White and A. Philip Randolph before it was
issued.[12-66]

[Footnote 12-65: Ltr, Donald S. Dawson, Admin Asst to
the President, to SecDef, 26 Jul 48. The executive
order on equal opportunity for federal employees
was also issued on 26 July.]

[Footnote 12-66: Columbia University Oral Hist Interv
with Wilkins.]

Actually, the order had been read to Forrestal on the evening of the
previous day, and his office had suggested one