that when the Under Secretary of the Navy, Dan A. Kimball, (p. 336)
reported to the Personnel Policy Board in May that "Negro Marines,
including Stewards, are assigned to other [white] Marine Corps units
in accord with their specialty," he was speaking of rare exceptions to
the general rule.[13-72]

[Footnote 13-71: Memo, CMC for CG, FMF, Pacific, 11
Feb 49, with attached Handwritten Note, Div of
Plans and Policies to Asst CMC, 11 Feb 49.]

[Footnote 13-72: Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 2
May 49, PPB 291.2.]

Cates seemed determined to ignore the military inefficiency attendant
on such elaborate attempts to insure the continued isolation of black
marines. The defense establishment, he was convinced, "could not be an
agency for experimentation in civil liberty without detriment to its
ability to maintain the efficiency and the high state of readiness so
essential to national defense." Having thus tied military efficiency
to segregation, Cates explained to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy
for Air that the efficiency of a unit was a command responsibility,
and so long as that responsibility rested with the commander, he must
be authorized to make such assignments as he deemed necessary. It
followed, then, that segregation was a national, not a military,
problem, and any attempt to change national policy through the armed
forces was, in the commandant's words, "a dangerous path to pursue
inasmuch as it affects the ability of the National Military
Establishment to fulfill its mission." Integration must first be
accepted as a national custom, he concluded, "before it could be
adopted in the armed forces."[13-73] Nor was General Cates ambiguous on
Marine Corps policy when it was questioned by civil rights leaders.
Individual marines, he told the commander of a black depot company in
a case involving opportunities available to reenlisting black marines,
would be employed in the future as in the past "to serve the best
interests of the Corps under existing circumstances."[13-74]

[Footnote 13-73: Memo, CMC for Asst SecNav for Air, 17
Mar 49, sub: Proposed Directive for the Armed
Forces for the Period 1 July 1949 to 1 July 1950,
AO-1, MC files.]

[Footnote 13-74: Idem for CO, Second Depot Co, Service
Cmd