responsibility for equal opportunity
matters to his assistant secretary for management, Eugene Zuckert, but
the task of formulating the specific plan fell to General Edwards. To
avoid conflict with some of his colleagues, Edwards resorted to the
unorthodox means of ignoring the usual staff coordination. He sent his
proposals directly to the Chief of Staff and then on to the secretary
for approval without reference to other staff agencies, one of which,
the Office of the Vice Chief of Staff, General Muir S. Fairchild, was
the focal point of staff opposition.[13-85]

[Footnote 13-85: For discussion of the close-held
nature of the USAF integration plan, see USAF Oral
Hist Intervs with Davis and Marr; see also Ltrs,
Marr to author, 19 Jun and 28 Jul 70.]

On the basis of evidence submitted by his long-standing study group,
General Edwards concluded that current Air Force policy for the use of
black manpower was "wasteful, deleterious to military effectiveness
and lacking in wartime application." The policy of the Navy was
superior, he told the Chief of Staff and the secretary, with respect
to military effectiveness, economy, and morale, especially when the
needs of full mobilization were considered. The Air Force would (p. 340)
profit by adopting a policy similar to that of the Navy, and he
proposed a program, to be "vigorously implemented and monitored," that
would inactivate the all-black fighter wing and transfer qualified
black servicemen from that wing as well as from all the major commands
to white units. One exception would be that those black specialists,
whose work was essential to the continued operation of their units,
would stay in their black units. Some black units would be retained to
provide for individuals ineligible for transfer to white units or for
discharge.

[Illustration: SECRETARY SYMINGTON.]

The new program would abolish the 10 percent quota and develop
recruiting methods to enable the Air Force to secure only the "best
qualified" enlistees of both races. Men chronically ineligible for
advancement, both black and white, would be eliminated. If too many
Negroes enlisted despite these measures, Edwards explained that an
"administratively determined ceiling of Negro intake" could be
established, but the Air Force had no intention of establishing a
minimum for black enlistees. As the Director of Personnel Planning put