te
problems which may have serious consequences in case of national
mobilization of those units."[13-25]

[Footnote 13-23: Remarks by Kenneth Royall in the
Committee of Four, 9 Mar 48, OSD Historical Office
files.]

[Footnote 13-24: P&A Summary Sheet, 7 Jul 48, sub:
Utilization of Negro Manpower in the National
Guard, WDGPA 291.2; O&T Summary Sheet, 8 Apr 48,
same sub. See also Memo, Col William Abendroth,
Exec, Cmte on NG and Reserve Policy, for CofSA, 30
Jun 48, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the
National Guard of the United States, Office file,
Army Reserve Forces Policy Cmte. Thirteen of the
seventeen committee members concurred with the
staff study without reservation; the remaining four
concurred with the proviso that states prohibiting
segregation be granted the right to integrate.]

[Footnote 13-25: Memo, CofSA for SA, 7 Jul 48, CSUSA
291.2 Negroes (1 Jul 48).]

Here the matter would stand for some time, the Army's segregation
policy intact, but an informal allowance made for excepting individual
states from prohibitions against integration below the company level.
Yet the publicity and criticism attendant upon these decisions might
well have given the traditionalists pause. While Secretary Royall, and
on occasion his superior, Secretary of Defense Forrestal, reiterated
the Army's willingness to accommodate certain states,[13-26] civil rights
groups were gaining allies for another proposition. The American
Veterans Committee had advanced the idea that to forbid integration at
the platoon level was a retreat from World War II practice, and to
accept the excuse that segregation was in the interest of national
defense was to tolerate a "travesty on words."[13-27] Hearings were
conducted in Congress in 1949 and 1951 on bills H.R. 1403 and H.R.
1389 to prohibit segregation in the National Guard. Royall's
interpretation of the National Defense Act did not satisfy advocates
of a thoroughly integrated guard, for it was clear that not many
states were likely to petition for permission to integrate. At the
same time the exceptions to the segregation rule promised an
incompatible situation betw