effort. Curiously, he admitted
that the plan was not favored by his military advisers. The Army
staff, he noted in what must have surprised anyone familiar with the
staff's consistent defense of segregation, thought the best way to
eliminate segregation was to reduce gradually the size of segregated
units and extend integration in schools, hospitals, and special units.
Nevertheless, Royall recommended that the National Military
Establishment as a whole, not the Army separately, go forward with the
experiment and that it start early in 1949.[13-48]

[Footnote 13-48: Memo, SA for SecDef, 2 Dec 48, CD
30-1-2, SecDef files.]

The other services had no intention of going forward with such an
experiment. The Air Force objected, as Secretary Symington explained,
because the experiment would be inconclusive; too many artificial
features were involved, especially having units composed of
volunteers. Arbitrary quotas violated the principle of equal
opportunity, he charged, and the experiment would be unfair to Negroes
because the proportion of Negroes able to compete with whites was less
than 1 to 10. Symington also warned against the public relations
aspect of the scheme, which was of "minimal military significance but
of major significance in the current public controversy on purely
racial issues." The Air Force could conduct the experiment without
difficulty, he conceded, for there were enough trained black
technicians to man 10 percent of the positions and give a creditable
performance, but these men were representative neither of the general
black population of the Air Force nor of Negroes coming into the
service during wartime.

Symington predicted that Negroes would suffer no matter how the
experiment came out--success would be attributed to the special
conditions involved; failure would reflect unjustly on the Negro's
capabilities. The Air Force, therefore, preferred to refrain from
participation in the experiment. Symington added that he was
considering a study prepared by the Air staff over the past six months
that would insure equality of treatment and increased opportunities
for Negroes in the Air Force, and he expected to offer proposals to
Forrestal in the immediate future.[13-49]

[Footnote 13-49: Memo, SecAF for SecDef, 22 Dec 48, CD
30-1-2, SecDef files.]

The Navy also wanted no part of the Royall experiment. Its acting
secretary