ice files.]

[Footnote 13-40: For a detailed analysis of the
various service arguments and positions, see Office
of the Secretary of Defense, "Proposed Findings and
Decisions on Questions of Parity of Mental
Standards, Allocation of Inductees According to
Physical and Mental Capabilities and Allocation of
Negroes" (Noble Report), 29 Oct 48, copy in SecDef
files.]

[Footnote 13-41: Memo, SecDef for SA et al., 12 Oct
48, with attached Summary of Supplement, copy in
CMH.]

Convinced that Forrestal had made the wrong decision, the Army staff
was nevertheless obliged to concern itself with the percentage of
Negroes it would have to accept under the new selective service law.
Although by November 1948 the Army's black strength had dropped to
9.83 percent of the total, its proportion of Negroes was still large
when compared with the Navy's 4.3 percent, the Marine Corps' 1.79
percent, and the Air Force's 6 percent. Projecting these figures
against the possible mobilization of five million men (assuming each
service increased in proportion to its current strength and absorbed
the same percentage of a black population remaining at 12 percent of
the whole), the Army calculated that its low entrance requirements
would give it a black strength of 21 percent. In the event of a
mobilization equaling or surpassing that of World War II, the minimum
test score of seventy would probably be lowered, and thus the Army
would shoulder an even greater burden of poorly educated men, a burden
that in the Army's view should be shared by all the services.[13-42]

[Footnote 13-42: DF, Dir, P&A, to CofS, 24 Jan 49,
sub: Experimental Unit, GSPGA 291.2 (24 Jan 49).]

_A Different Approach_

No matter how the Army tried to justify segregation or argue against
the position of the Navy and Air Force, the integrationists continued
to gain ground. Royall, in opposition, adopted a new tactic in the
wake of the Truman order. He would have the Army experiment with
integration, perhaps proving that it would not work on a large scale,
certainly buying time for Circular 124 and frustrating the rising
demand for change. He had expressed willingness to experiment with an
integrated Army unit when Lester Granger m